I recently got my waterproof iPod replaced under the warranty. They must have given me one that had been returned, because it had all of this music from the band Skillet and its ilk, which I have not really listened to before. Rather than change the music to my own, I've been listening to this music, trying to imagine what life must have been like for this guy (I assume male, statistically), who happened to have gotten this iPod, perhaps for Christmas, then decided he'd rather have something else instead. When I swim laps to his music selected largely by tempo rather than artistry, I feel like a meathead, and it's a nice change of pace.
This happened to me once years ago when I had bought a used ipod from a friend of a friend (a Brooklyn hipster before anyone knew what that was). I would wander the streets of my city listening to Sufjan Stevens, Xiu Xiu, and Neko Case. It was so fascinating to me to make that the soundtrack of my life for those months. For one, my music taste was for once very of the moment. For two, it happens to be very easy to to get concert tickets for up and coming acts before they've made it national, which was fun to see these artists in very intimate settings. But I also just felt like I was peeking into the head of this particular guy. The songs he chose to exclude from albums told me as much about him as the ones chose to include. (Also, the experience made me wonder, does absolutely everyone have a Michael Jackson song tucked away on a laptop or MP3 player somewhere?_
You learn a lot from people by stepping into their shoes for a little bit. I know there is a mix of people who read this blog: some who identify as sociopaths, some with other diagnoses, some who love/hate a sociopath, and some who are just curious. This invitation is probably most directed to the curious.
People have often opined to me that sociopaths are hated because the particular individual does bad things, not because the diagnosis itself maligned and misunderstood. In my own personal experience, this doesn't ring true -- there seems to be quiet a bit of pejorative force to the label/diagnosis. (I had a long holiday conversation with a cousin whom I hadn't seen in a couple years. He told me how he spent a long weekend worrying about how I might try to kill him or his children, finally deciding that it was not too likely.)
So here's the invitation: pretend to be a sociopath. Do like the guy in Black Like Me. Act otherwise completely like yourself but with this additional label. I'm curious to see what people think about what it feels like to have people see you through the lens of that label.
And as a parting gift, this classic from Bobby Caldwell who was advised to disguise his whiteness.
This happened to me once years ago when I had bought a used ipod from a friend of a friend (a Brooklyn hipster before anyone knew what that was). I would wander the streets of my city listening to Sufjan Stevens, Xiu Xiu, and Neko Case. It was so fascinating to me to make that the soundtrack of my life for those months. For one, my music taste was for once very of the moment. For two, it happens to be very easy to to get concert tickets for up and coming acts before they've made it national, which was fun to see these artists in very intimate settings. But I also just felt like I was peeking into the head of this particular guy. The songs he chose to exclude from albums told me as much about him as the ones chose to include. (Also, the experience made me wonder, does absolutely everyone have a Michael Jackson song tucked away on a laptop or MP3 player somewhere?_
You learn a lot from people by stepping into their shoes for a little bit. I know there is a mix of people who read this blog: some who identify as sociopaths, some with other diagnoses, some who love/hate a sociopath, and some who are just curious. This invitation is probably most directed to the curious.
People have often opined to me that sociopaths are hated because the particular individual does bad things, not because the diagnosis itself maligned and misunderstood. In my own personal experience, this doesn't ring true -- there seems to be quiet a bit of pejorative force to the label/diagnosis. (I had a long holiday conversation with a cousin whom I hadn't seen in a couple years. He told me how he spent a long weekend worrying about how I might try to kill him or his children, finally deciding that it was not too likely.)
So here's the invitation: pretend to be a sociopath. Do like the guy in Black Like Me. Act otherwise completely like yourself but with this additional label. I'm curious to see what people think about what it feels like to have people see you through the lens of that label.
And as a parting gift, this classic from Bobby Caldwell who was advised to disguise his whiteness.

