In a humanity manipulators would like nothing more than to paint in fifty shades of greys, getting rid of the last dredges of responsibility in the process, because if everyone and his neighbour does it, why wouldn’t they… I personally see a very definite limit and I found it in empathy.
Empathy, you have it or not.
And as the true empathy is the capacity to put yourself in others’ shoes and feel in their stead, thus not being able to torture a fellow human, what some people call “dark empathy” isn’t the true thing. It’s just the ability for some people to feign the real deal thanks to a mix of psychology and intuition.
Preferably very high psychological perceptions.
And it is no wonder, that in the psyche professions, where you’ll find the most vulnerable people, you’ll also meet the cleverest psychopaths.
I said the same about priests so don’t shoot me…
When you have empathy, you are positive.
And I’m not speaking here on a subjective level, because when you are a positive person, with empathy, you can concretely create your own energy.
Whereas when you are negative, you just can’t and depend on others’ energy.
And as a reminder, if I’m not, strictly speaking, a professional in psychology, albeit a very very passionate amateur, I am an expert about personal energy.
There are different grades in my pyramid of negative people beginning with the egotist and the narcissist and finishing with the sociopath and psychopaths. Keep in mind, though, that the narcissist is also an egotist. And that the socio/psychopaths are both also egotists and narcissists. Of course. They just have gone forwards – or backwards, morally speaking – on the dark path.
These shades of negativity are directly linked to the lucidity, i.e. the cleverness of seeing oneself and the world. And thus directly linked to the capacity to take advantage of said world.
Cleverness is here THE important factor, then, THE important voice. When egotists are the slave of their urges, psychopaths will calculate everything and wear a very good mask.
Therefore, the importance of each inner voice (common sense, ego, personality, heart, intelligence, intuition and conscience) will not be the same if you are a positive person or a negative one.
And my first drawings represents an idea of what an equilibrium could be.
Of course, each of us, persons with empathy, has a different inner balance: we are not, as some negative sandpit predators would like to think, a blurry herd of quasi identical sheep.
My second graphic shows the inner disequilibrium experienced by negative people: to make it short, the ego is taking too much space.
And when the ego is taking so much space, it obliterates any conscience and heart (because only me, myself and I have any importance…), while, at the same time, smothering the personality and the common sense.
Egotists, narcissists and sociopaths will essentially rely on their intuition, “their guts”, to navigate a difficult world, while psychopaths will prone their cleverness.
Which could explain to you, by the way, why there are so many successful idiots: because the intuition, in the end, is always more right than the intelligence.
And because the brain generates this little cynical voice, which, when it’s not harnessed to a problem, will generate fear and paranoia.
Ever heard this unproductive “we are all going to die”, “this is so going to break down”, “the world is going to end soon”… ? You can bet it’s your intelligence making itself known.
In my case, I can’t seem to shut it up before taking a plane…
This could also explain to you the superiority psychopaths feel. Well, apart from the obvious truth that the world wouldn’t be that radiant without them…
It’s because they aren’t dominated by vile urges. No, ladies and gentlemen, they think! And therefore they are the ultimate evolution on this good green Earth.
And yes, I can concede they are more clever than your average Joe. In many cases, it’s even this lucidity and the many fears attached to it that had them topple on the dark path they have chosen.
Being a human with all the incertitude it entails isn’t easy…
But as superiorly clever as they may be, they are still unbalanced.
Of course, they don’t see it that way. In their mind they got rid of scruples and unnecessary feelings that would have weighted them down and prevented them to win this rat race. When we stay glued in the caramelized sugar of our own empathy.
But these are the same feelings that enable us to love, to be happy and to produce our very own energy when they are stuck with a parasitic state. They hate us for that.
And I won’t even try to explain here the numerous energetic black holes I’ve met.
But it’s one of the reasons I won’t work as a Reiki therapist: I’ve been a fuel pump for long enough for my family without being remotely interested in going on.
There is a malediction inherent to the path negative some people have chosen.
Besides the obvious, I mean.
It’s that the ego, once given too much free rein, will always grow. It’s like this snow ball that was pushed along the slide: its natural fate is to become an avalanche.
It’s his destiny, Luke.
It’s like this hot air balloon that has cut any tie to the ground, flying way above any common sense.
And if the psychopaths’ lucidity enable them to resist this skyward fatal attraction, sometimes until the end, this is not the same for other more common forms of narcissism.
Hello there, egotistical deliriums.
Deliriums that can become tendencies or even dominant cultures when they find each others and coalesce. Which social media has made so much easier!
And which can explain to you, in the end, the current mental health mess we are in…