“Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain are storms in a tiny private, shell-bound realm – which we take to be the whole of existence. Yet we can break out of this shell and enter a new world.”-- Eknath Easwaran
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I believe this to be true as well. I am doing some intense work to develop compassion, understanding, kindness, etc. All those "human" attributes I seem to be programmed not to have. I'm realizing those charicteristics do exist in sociopaths, but are dwarfed compared with what empaths experience. While I can tap into those things for those who I view as friends and family, I am almost incapable of doing so for people I dislike. Especially if you've crossed me in some way. Anger, resentment and revenge are the default programming. I realize trying to re-program my hard wiring is ambitious to say the least. Currently, I am discovering how painful it is to view the world from outside the shell. I am frightened of the world when I am not insulated by my shell. I dislike being vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteMore learning from the past haha. I agree totally with the quote and wildchild. It takes a lot of work and concentration, but if you so desire you can exercise those so unused emotions. Like a muscle they will tone up. Probably will never be owned by those emotions, as they are like a second or third learned language and everyone resorts to their native tongue in times of stress or excitement. However you can reprogram which emotions respond to simuli, if any and life becomes much easier. It makes it easy to see the pattern our emotional responses (or lack thereof) shapes life into. When the patterns are visible you can no longer hold yourself back from achieving your hopes and dreams. True story.
DeleteAgreed.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to dig up those feelings for even my closest friends, only two of my family members I genuinely feel for, everyone else I just fake it...so when it comes to people who crossed me or I feel might, there is nothing there, nothing real.
NOTHING! lol
ReplyDeletenothingness is used more specifically as the state of nonexistence of everything.
ReplyDeleteDamn. I never thought I’d see an Eknath Easwaran quote here. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteWildchildgirly said, “I am doing some intense work to develop compassion, understanding, kindness, etc.”
Why?
“Currently, I am discovering how painful it is to view the world from outside the shell. I am frightened of the world when I am not insulated by my shell. I dislike being vulnerable.”
Ok, is this a spiritual thing, as in, you are attempting to transcend your ego so that you can get enlightened or become one with the universe and all that jazz?
Daniel, I think you are right about "all that jazz" since it does seem like Wildchild is trying to ascend to a higher level of self by trying intensely to nurture those “human” or “humane” attributes, develop those humane traits.
ReplyDeleteWildchild, I find it ironic that you said “programmed” instead of born, implying that you are more mechanical then anything else. I mean, if you’re such a terminator then why try to develop data you clearly weren’t designed to have in the first place? Maybe by not having those systematical attributes, you are on some primal level, more human then humane, since those traits you so badly desire are all the things a humane person would have instilled in them from the get go, which you said you were clearly “programmed" to not have.
Have you thought about the reasons you want these emotions and do you know why you think you’ll be better with them then you are without them?
I don't feel that I am in a shell at all. I can feel excitement and the rest. But I've never viewed myself as being in a shell-bound realm. I view myself more as watching over or above the world. Seeing it for what it is, and being able to see each person as they are. A better way to explain it is seeing it through special glasses that let me see everything for what it really is and work with it. I don't find the need to break out or join. I don't want to be intimate and share my emotions with others. Why should I?
ReplyDeleteWildchild, I tried to do that for almost 5 years, and all it did was make me miserable and frustrate me.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'd empathize with people, their problems would disturb me greatly, to the point where I'd want little else but to fix them. Unfortunately, I found that people don't really want their problems fixed. Finding a solution to their problem would undermine the validity and importance of their feelings, and that's apparently a no-no.
I couldn't handle that. My own emotions drive me crazy if I don't address them, so I begin taking steps to mitigate them immediately.
If I'm too excited, I fix it.
If I'm frightened, I fix it.
If I'm bored, I fix it.
If I'm sad, I fix it.
So forth and so on.
Trying to cling to someone else's emotions, when they refuse to even consider a logical resolution, was not only deeply disturbing, but felt downright stupid. I couldn't keep it up, and it almost invariably ended with me feeling angry and disgusted with them, and sometimes even with myself. I was left with less respect for their feelings than I'd had to begin with, and the longer I tried to suppress it, the worse it became. They just seemed so fucking dumb, I felt even dumber for letting their idiocy affect me unnecessarily, which pissed me off even more.
I find I'm much happier if I just go on not giving a shit, and my relationships with people are better as a result.
Why are you striving for this?
What do you hope to gain?
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ReplyDeleteDid you ever try being consistently honest? I'm talking about real, heart-felt honesty, not just speaking the truth. If so, how did that turn out for you?
ReplyDeleteWas there ever a time when you thought your emotions were normal? If so, how did you discover that they weren't?
What happened to all these people? all the 2009 posters.
ReplyDeleteAll killed in a tragic accident...
DeleteThey ascended~
DeleteThey took their lives when the emptiness of their existence became too much to bear.
ReplyDeleteDetachment seem to be such an alien concept obsessed by occidental mindsets.
ReplyDeleteLol waht?
DeleteI love this quote and it fits where I am--on the edge of a paradigm shift. I am seeing the prison of my own thoughts which make my emotions whacked. The walls of the prison are coming down by sharing them in a creative pursuit.
ReplyDeleteSW is my only place where I can be, totally, real. People on the outside, so to speak, want you to shut up and conform. They will punish you, otherwise. If you, already, know who you are, that is fine. You just blow them off, but if you don't, you judge yourself as being wrong and them as being right.
You can say anything here, as long as it is real and heartfelt. You get punished for being a phoney and that is it( or maybe boring)
:) Good Morning and Happy friday sociopathworld!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteEvery time you use an exclamation mark, God kills an empath.
DeleteYou calling on God, now ~
DeleteJeeeeeeezus did you see what GOD just did to us man?!
DeleteIf it weren't for Rich to spice things up, this place would've been pretty bland.
Delete'Hey, I know, today we'll talk about what a total Sociopath I am, I'm so, like, cold...'
Every damn time.
You guys should have a 'Who's the biggest Sociopath' award for whoever manages to convince themselves that they're the meanest baddest bady around.
DeleteSeems like all those exclamation marks you used ended in the deaths of kindergarten kids, Rich.
DeleteTHINK OF THE CHILDREN
Learn to use exclamation marks responsibly.
Man
ReplyDeleteThis Connecticut shooter targeted his mother. Most of the shooting went on in her classroom.
His father was found dead, too.
DeleteThis Connecticut shooter targeted his mother.
DeleteYeah. That part really stood out for me. My next thought was, I wonder if Monica's eyebrows raised at that too :p
Pity he had to take out all those kids too.
I just found out that I love Charles Manson. Why the hell aren't people listening to this guy?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=cE6r_XnwwNM&feature=endscreen
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XREnvJRkif0
DeleteThat's hilarious.
I just know how much you guys LOVE 'Sociopaths'...
DeleteLOL! I thought this one was the most HILARIOUS Charles Manson comment I have ever seen.
Deletez
This is his response to the parole board after they ask him what his plans for work are when/if he gets out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g-U2-cAUMM
You KNOW its gonna be hilarious when it starts out with "I dont wanna take my time goin to work" LOL
The guy looks like Elijah or Moses or something with all that beard going on... Lol...
DeleteAnother male shooter. And a female suicide
ReplyDeleteYep, time to go ahead and take everyone's guns away. Don't forget to take cars away to. Cars kill more children than guns, but no one says take the cars?
ReplyDeleteAnd steak knives. Eat it with your hands.
ReplyDeleteThere is a handbook to life and a fucked up handbook to life. The contents of the handbook to life are not told you, unless you have someone who loves you very much and is savvy enough to buck the system. People keep lying to you until you wake up, like a drunk in the sewers, spewing Wild Turkey, or the cheapest wine you can put into your little, brown bag of respectability.
ReplyDeleteThere are secrets to the Universe, but they are hidden like brightly colored eggs in an Easter egg hunt. Some are pink polka dot on a bright yellow backgrounds. You could swear they were magical. Some are pale blue, the color of the sky. Some may be dark brown or black, just to screw you up, a little. Afterwards, you have a whole basket of delights. You searched under trees, bushes, tall grass and you found them, even pushing other kids aside, if you had to.
ReplyDeleteSecrets of the universe are not pretty. That is how you identify them. They make you squirm, as if you swallowed cod liver oil or ate liver, if you hate it. If they were pretty, everyone would tell you because everyone wants to be pretty. That is why it takes someone who loves you, to brave it, because they become ugly in the telling.
ReplyDeleteAnd no one wants to be ugly.
DeleteWhen you're bleeding out, and dying fast, looking good should be the last thing on your mind.
DeleteMost are looking for a cure, trust me, it's gonna look damn good to catch a glimpse of that.
Except for snakes; they don't care. No tail-wagging, no licking, no cuteness. Don't pet me.
ReplyDelete^^^
ReplyDeleteAbuse shatters you into tiny fragments, like when crystal breaks. You rue the day they make that shit, when you have to clean it up. It has multitudes of progeny, as if magical mitosis went nuclear and the population explosion occurred on your floor.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are abused you have dozens of parts, talking to each other( or yelling at each other) It is a cacophony like Bela Bartok, the most stupid composer who ever lived. If you can't make music pretty, why bother?
Everything has its beauty, in its own time.
DeleteThat must be you, Literary Anon because you made me cry x
DeleteWhy do some of you want to learn to be more emotional? Because other humans say that's what you're suppose to be. They're nothing special and emotion is a self-destructing weakness, although the only emotion worthy of attention and use is happiness.
ReplyDeleteAnti-Social Personality Disorder for me is a gift, because what you have isn't what's important it's how you use it. You can be a sociopath and have a chip on your shoulder, feel insane, or feel like a freak. Or you can realize you have less limits if any limits when compared to other people. "Normal" people dwell and cry in their own self pity and emotions and tiny little problems, but sociopaths don't do that at all and we can be leaders and leaders usually are sociopaths.
Sanity is for the weak. Sanity is for the people that are genetically born that way or are simply taught that way by society, because it's a leash for people like the government or leaders in general so they simply don't do as they please. With sociopathy we chew that leash off, but make it seem like it's still there. We're realist that don't dwell on little things and have a solution for ever problem.
"Normal" people only look at that as a bad thing, because we can over power them in the best/worst ways there are, which is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
The weapon is irrelevant when compared to how you wield it.
You're a sociopath so learn about yourself, embrace yourself, and exploit yourself and the world of entertainment around you. Or you can be a "normal" social joe... whatever that is. And you can complain none stop and have an absolute meaningless life. Or you can do the exact opposite which you're meant to do or at the very least capable of as a sociopath.
-Something we're all thinking, but we either haven't thought of saying it or just never said it.