anart
A Disturbance in the Force
I'm a bit confused here, are you saying that manipulating people into doing what you want them to do becomes fun? Or are you saying adopting psychopathic behavior traits to get an advantage becomes fun?BinaryGirl said:Russ: I agree, I think they would look at it in a similar way I have: they see it as a competitive advantage to others in which they have the advantage. When you look at things like that, you see it as a game, a challenge, and it actually becomes fun.
By 'you', do you actually mean 'I' , since you look at it in a similar way?bg said:You really enjoy doing it when you can and you wind up putting yourself in situations where the stakes get higher.
Again, when you use the word 'you', do you mean 'I'. The reason I ask is that as someone who worked for years within a 'corporatocracy' I never, for one instant, thought it was fun or a game. I found it oppressive on every level.bg said:Of course in the business world where middle management wants what upper management has and lower management wants what middle management has and the rest of the way down the chain, you don't necessarily look at it as a...cold sterile 'corporatocracy' you look at it as a game, it's fun.
Or from the inside, if one is sensitive to other people's suffering.bg said:I guess it's hard to explain if you look on it from the outside.
And, again, I'm a bit confused by this part of your post. (Mercury is still retrograde, so could just be confusion) This paragraph seems to fully contradict the things you've preceded it with. From the first part, you paint a picture of yourself as someone who thinks it's fun and a game to manipulate for your own benefit in a business environment - and here - you say that the 'advancement and continuation of our species' is the most important thing -- you rather lost me.bg said:I think ultimately what people in this mindset forget, or are 'ponerized' to, is the innate connection to humanity. The advancement and continuation of our species is absolutely the most important thing to me without exception, I would do anything for the preservation of humanity; I am just afraid that too few others feel the same way.
But developing that Will is exactly what we are concerned with here - it is part and parcel of the Work. So, from Tigersoap's viewpoint, since he is engaged in the Work, it is a very prescient statement. Until you are - or anyone is - awake, you have control over nothing.bg said:Tigersoap: You could argue that very few people have that kind of 'will' over yourself in the grand scheme of things
And there are many, many people out there who think they have a 'honest sense of connection' - because they cannot know they don't have it. If one is missing the ability to experience deep, real emotions and empathy, then they cannot know that they are missing that - they do not know what it is they are missing, so they think they do have it - they assume that their experience is 'it' - even when it doesn't even approach 'it'.bg said:but having a very honest sense of connection towards humanity makes you take a step back and appreciate the greater impacts of your actions on others.
Until one is fully awake, nothing they do is purposeful - it is all purely mechanical - they 'do' nothing. It also strikes me that saying that you 'operate' on this basis and yet continuing to do it is rather odd. It's as if you are saying, 'since I know I do it, it's ok'. Perhaps I'm completely misunderstanding you though, it's happened before.bg said:They say that in the psychopathic brain their thinking trends towards hyperactivity while their feeling senses are much less so; this is how I operate on a more functioning basis but that doesn't mean I do things for any purpose of selfishness, probably absolutely to the contrary (at least most of the time) if you knew me in person. I can tell you that a lot of this is definitely learned and cultivated behaviour.
It's interesting how people with sleeping/dead emotional centers often perceive emotionally normal people as 'hyper-emotional'. Judging from your description of yourself thus far, it might be worth considering.bg said:My ex (who I was with for about 3 years) was a hyper emotional ISFP
Childhood trauma and programming often (almost always) lead to suppressed emotions - if it hurts beyond imagining to feel, then it's natural to 'turn that off' - this may be a factor in your case, I cannot know.bg said:and she said when she met me I was 100 times more distant emotionally than I am now (and others have said similar things) so I would argue that if an individual has the capacity for empathy it can be cultivated or suppressed.
Definitely - there is ponerization, where we as a society (and individually) take on psychopathic traits to survive. Having a sleeping emotional center makes this much easier, and for all we know, that may be one of the reasons so many people with potential are so damaged early on in life - to shut down the one component that can empower them to rise above the ponerization.bg said:If they do not have the capacity, there is nothing to work from. Similarly I think the same could be argued about learned emotional suppression.
That does not preclude the fact, however, that with a psychopath, there is no component to shut down - they're hard wired to 'succeed' - most people of conscience have a very hard time following suit, without sustaining considerable emotional/energetic and even physical damage (which can also lead to a further 'shutting down').
And it's very important not to jump to conclusions about people - someone who appears to be psychopathic, could just be a 'soul in struggle' - but I think that might also be part of what this discussion is 'getting at'. Just some thoughts.