Thoughts 32

Intentions and Actions 5

In earlier posts I put forth some different ideas about interconnectedness. Today my thoughts are just as far into the ozone, but in another area. When I reference everything I experience in relation to myself, I am being self-centered. If I built an extreme reality of egocentricity, then I maybe unable to empathize with or feel compassion for others. The actions that I take might be thought as being good, but I will have an ulterior motive for doing them. The pain that I intentionally create will be for my benefit and I will not care. For me my whole universe is me. Nothing but me and what I want matters. The above statements describe for me psychopathy and sociopathy.

I first got interested in psychopathy and sociopathy when in a story on television I was watching it was stated that one person was a psychopath and another was a sociopath. The statement sounded as if there was a difference and I wanted to know what that was. In my research I found they could be used interchangeably. Also, I found statements that said the population of the United States was one to three percent psychopaths. That probably could be extended to the whole world. If the Untied States population was three-hundred million, then three to nine-million psychopaths are here now. Only a very small portion of the psychopaths are violent.

Thinking about the others who weren't violent, I realized that some would be smart enough to make it into the higher echelons of business and politics. They would be adroit in those environs. The largest portion by far of the people with this reality would be in-between the ones that were leaders of our society and the ones who were sadists. The in-betweens would be the common man working, trying to get through life while not caring what he did, the grifter and a many others creating pain.

Later while perusing an issue of Scientific American, I read an article that was based on Kevin Dutton's book “The Wisdom of Psychopaths”; it may have been a book review. The article referred to tests that were given where the results showed stronger psychopathic traits in people who were not violent than the violent ones in prison. It went on to say that it was sometimes beneficial for corporate officials because they could create vast amounts of pain in the lives of thousands of people by firing them without feeling remorse. Another profession that the psychopathic reality could benefit would the cutting edge of medical surgery. The surgeon could view the patient as a job instead of a person.

After going through the thoughts about sociopaths and psychopaths I realized that the more egocentric I was, the more like them I was. Hopefully, I never came close to being a sociopath, but I have to admit that there have been times in my life that I was very self-centered.

All images from google images.