From: olivercranglejr@gmail.com   
      
   Inside the Mind of a Sociopath   
      
   This excerpt is from: "The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless vs. the Rest of   
   Us" by Martha Stout Ph.D. (Broadway Books, New York, 2005, ISBN    
   -7679-1581-X).  Martha Stout is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical   
   School and elaborates on the tales of    
   ruthlessness in everyday life based on her 25 years of practice as a   
   specialist in the treatment of psychological trauma survivors.   
      
   Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of   
   guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern of the   
   well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members.  Imagine no   
   struggles with shame, not a    
   single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful,   
   or immoral action you had taken.  And pretend that the concept of   
   responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept   
   without question, like gullible    
   fools.  Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other   
   people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs.    
   Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings,   
   hiding the fact that you    
   are conscience-free is nearly effortless.  You are not held back from any of   
   your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for   
   your cold-bloodedness.  The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so   
   completely outside of their    
   personal experience that they seldom even guess at your condition.   
      
   In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your   
   unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is   
   conveniently invisible to the world.  You can do anything at all, and still   
   your strange advantage over    
   the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most   
   likely remain undiscovered.   
      
   How will you live your life?  What will you do with your huge and secret   
   advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?    
   The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because   
   people are not all the    
   same.  Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same.  Some people -   
   whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while   
   others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions.  Some human beings are   
   brilliant and talented, some    
   are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between.  There   
   are violent people and non-violent ones, individuals who are motivated by   
   blood lust and those who have no such appetites.   
      
   Maybe you are someone who craves money and power, and though you have no   
   vestige of conscience, you do have a magnificent IQ.  You have the driving   
   nature and the intellectual capacity to pursue tremendous wealth and   
   influence, and you are in no way    
   moved by the nagging voice of conscience that prevents other people from doing   
   everything and anything they have to do to succeed.  You choose business,   
   politics, the law, banking or international development, or any of a broad   
   array of other power    
   professions, and you pursue your career with a cold passion that tolerates   
   none of the usual moral or legal encumbrances.  When it is expedient, you   
   doctor the accounting and shred the evidence, you stab your employees and your   
   clients (or your    
   constituency) in the back, marry for money, tell lethal premeditated lies to   
   people who trust you, attempt to ruin colleagues who are powerful or eloquent,   
   and simply steamroll over groups who are dependent and voiceless.  And all of   
   this you do with the    
   exquisite freedom that results from having no conscience whatsoever.   
      
   You become unimaginably, unassailably, and maybe even globally successful.    
   Why not?  With your big brain, and no conscience to rein in your schemes, you   
   can do anything at all.   
      
   Or no - let us say you are not quite such a person.  You are ambitious, yes,   
   and in the name of success you are willing to do all manner of things that   
   people with conscience would never consider, but you are not an intellectually   
   gifted individual.     
   Your intelligence is above average perhaps, and people think of you as smart,   
   maybe even very smart.  But you know in your heart of hearts that you do not   
   have the cognitive wherewithal, or the creativity, to reach the careening   
   heights of power you    
   secretly dreams about, and this makes you resentful of the world at large, and   
   envious of the people around you.   
      
   As this sort of person, you ensconce yourself in a niche, or maybe a series of   
   niches, in which you can have some amount of control over small numbers of   
   people.  These situations satisfy a little of your desire for power, although   
   you are chronically    
   aggravated at not having more.  It chafes to be so free of the ridiculous   
   inner voices that inhibit others from achieving great power, without having   
   enough talent to pursue the ultimate successes yourself.  Sometimes you fall   
   into sulky, rageful moods    
   caused by a frustration that no one but you understands.   
      
   But you do enjoy jobs that afford you a certain undersupervised control over a   
   few individuals or small groups, preferably people and groups who are   
   relatively helpless or in some way vulnerable.  You are a teacher or a   
   psychotherapist, a divorce lawyer    
   or a high school coach.  Or maybe you are a consultant of some kind, a broker   
   or a gallery owner or a human services director.  Or maybe you do not have a   
   paid position and are instead the president of your condominium association,   
   or a volunteer    
   hospital worker, or a parent.  Whatever your job, you manipulate and bully the   
   people who are under your thumb, as often and as outrageously as you can   
   without getting fired or held accountable.  You do this for its own sake, even   
   when it serves no    
   purpose except to give you a thrill.  Making people jump means you have power   
   - or this is the way you see it - and bullying provides you with an adrenaline   
   rush.  It is fun.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)