I appreciate the clarity and introspection in your post. It’s rare to see such a lucid account of psychopathy from someone who embodies it, and I find it valuable to hear this perspective articulated so openly. Your self-awareness and ability to analyze the differences between psychopathic and neurotypical cognition make for a thought-provoking read. That said, I would like to offer a response from the perspective of someone who is neurotypical—more than that, someone who experiences emotions intensely, who feels deeply connected to others, and who, in many ways, operates from an intuitive sense of empathy rather than a cognitive one. You describe the process of neurotypicals adjusting to you, while you adjust to them, but with a fundamental difference: for you, this adaptation is behavioral, detached from any deep emotional recalibration. I find it intriguing how you frame your ability to learn consideration, to model certain social behaviors, and yet remain essentially unaffected by them. From my vantage point, this highlights a crucial distinction: neurotypicals do not merely adopt behaviors; we absorb and internalize experiences in a way that reshapes who we are. Our emotional bonds and connections are not just social contracts or patterns we follow—they are, in a very real sense, an extension of our being. Your post suggests that some neurotypicals might envy the psychopathic way of processing (or, rather, not processing) emotions, particularly in times of pain. This is likely true—who wouldn’t want to bypass suffering? But this framing, in my view, oversimplifies the role of emotion in neurotypical life. It is not merely a matter of cost-benefit, where we accept pain in order to receive joy. Rather, the depth of our emotional experiences is what gives life its meaning. The highs and lows are not two separate phenomena that must be weighed against each other; they are part of the same fabric. You emphasize that neurotypicals cannot simply "behave away" their emotions. I completely agree. But I would take it further: emotions are not just obstacles to be managed or endured. They are not static, unchanging entities that control us unless we find a way to override them. They are dynamic, fluid, and deeply interconnected with our sense of identity, our relationships, and even our perception of time and reality. To try to eliminate them—or to view them as merely "problems"—would be to lose something essential, something that makes the world vibrant, meaningful, and profound. You mention that neurotypicals who try to emulate psychopathy might cause themselves emotional harm, and I think this is a key insight. But I wonder—do you see the reverse happening as well? That is, do you think prolonged proximity to deeply emotional individuals ever shapes or shifts you in ways you do not expect? Even if the change is not emotional in nature, does immersion in a world so governed by feeling ever leave its imprint on you? You write that you have learned behaviors from others, but have you ever encountered something that, despite yourself, actually moved you? Lastly, your curiosity about how much of neurotypical emotional life is innate versus shaped by environment is a fascinating one. I think you’re right to suspect that there is a great deal of social reinforcement involved, but I would argue that at the core, there is something irreducible—something that is not merely trained into us, but intrinsic to the way we experience existence. Perhaps this is what ultimately separates our modes of being: for you, emotions are an external phenomenon, something to observe, navigate, or ignore; for neurotypicals, they are not just a part of life, but the very lens through which life is lived. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you for your explorations/posts. I have, as a rebooting NT, been exploring the actual usefulness of emotion (if any), and reading your posts, Kevin Dutton, Zen philosophy etc., has been very helpful.
So you can know my perspective if interested: (for brevity I will use bullet points)
Issues with Emotion:
External focus of identity/fulfillment vs internal focus of same
Knee jerk response vs aware and selective listening
Addiction vs conscious attachment and disconnection
Value/liability of automatic neurotransmitter response vs rational self selected efficacy
My opinion: Most NT’s are unconscious devotees/addicts of the “Church of Emotion and Herd”, with all the attending erratic faith based/junkie justifications for conflicting/hypocritical values, choices, judgements, actions, results, etc.
Learning about neurotransmitters and variations in response to same has led me to see emotions from a more rational, big picture POV. For most of my life I have fought a huge battle between a strong internal focus and traumatically conditioned obedience to the Church of Emotion and Herd. My natural perspectives, choices and actions were always in conflict with what I was being taught to be, and I had to learn the ability to self squash to “get along”. I was always most effective in crisis, sports, hobbies, skills, etc being myself, but was most socially compatible being “Churchy”. I bounced back and forth with much drama. At some point a choice of sides was required. I gave up the Church.
From my experience, NT’s can learn to mute response to emotion, and in time, emotions can fade from “lack of use”. For me personally, the more faded they became, the more clear, content and effective my life became. That includes both negative and positive emotions, which have become for me, just two sides of the same addiction. Glorifying positive emotions is like saying the “high of heroin” makes all the rest of that lifestyle worth it. You, as a psychopath, have an inherent lack of response, and that genetic possibility makes me wonder if there is a spectrum of genetic neurotransmitter response from overwhelming to non existent, with all the ensuing behavior choices. While not psychopathically without response, I wonder if I am inherently low on the response scale, which when I was young, led to choices and actions that others found highly disturbing, which led to the ferocity of their attempts to re-educate/redirect me. I grew up with two “life tracks”if you will, forever hopping from one to the other. Just FYI, my conflicts rarely involved the law, but were more about the way I did things vs the way others did things.
As an NT, my struggle was “which is right: the Church or me?”, with all the pinball bouncing between self condemnation and self affirmation. As a psychopath, I believe your struggle was not “which is right”, but “what do I have to do to effectively co exist with all of them?”. While I am not free of emotional noise, this is essentially where I am now and reading your posts has helped me see the challenges of that choice more clearly.
The interesting question for me now is “Is there actually any value to emotion at all? Is it actually just a liability? In my experience, nothing corrupts perception of reality like emotion, whether positive or negative. I use it mostly as a source of humor now. Which leads me to the question: is psychopath humor different too?
No response necessary, I just wanted to say thank you and provide some context for my appreciation. I am however, curious about the answer to that last question…
Great piece--I really enjoy your writing (I know you get that all the time). I have to wonder though, on the lines of muted positive emotions for you--do you ever experience true passion? My knee jerk answer for you would be no, but I'm still learning and I wanted to ask. For instance, I am extremely passionate about creating art because it influences me emotionally, and vice versa (my emotions influence my art). I guess in the same manner one would listen to a song that would bring up memories and emotions tied to those memories, or even a song that one would hear that just touches them in a way that cannot be explained. So I guess I'm curious if you ever feel drawn to something that is more than surface level--I hope that makes sense.
I figured as much. Thanks for the response. As a follow-up, Is there anything you really enjoy doing (hobbies, activities, etc) that you feel like you thoroughly enjoy and wouldn't be the same person without?
It's quite interesting seeing those suituations from the perspective of the NT's. Everybody wants to be a psychopath in order to mute their "bad" emotions. It will never happen in their life and trying to cosplay psychopathy is really bringing harm to them.
I agree, it will bring harm to them, and I have been working on a piece that will go up next week, or the week after that touches on a conversation that lightly hovers around the idea of bad emotions and how people avoid or embrace them.
Indeed, suffering is the price to pay feeling joy in life, everyone suffers, you too but you are allow to have other mechanisms that make you resilient to it, however, and as you said, NT's have a broader range of emotions which make them "feel" more, it's equally for the bad and the good. If they want to suffer less, cosplaying psychopathy is definitely not the answer, rather creating their own mechanisms of emotions management and control specific for their needs.
I think you nailed this Athena in terms of what NT’s are unable to do emotionally and I agree with your reasoning as to why.
One thing I realised, and only over the past week or so, is how much emotional baggage I carry round from past and in some cases current relationships. I realised that I often worry that I have offended people if they don’t automatically provide me with the feedback I am expecting. When I thought about it a little more logically, I realised that these feelings are ‘me generated’. I often have no evidence to support the fact I have offended someone, not really, they just might not respond immediately or might be busy with life stuff. I sit there wasting all that energy fretting, when really the whole thing is a hangover from my past and nothing to do with the now.
Use logic, look for solid evidence, that’s what a psychopath relies on, not emotions, which whilst truly lovely to experience at times, can also be extremely misleading.
Your article ties in nicely with realisations I’ve been having this week.
Is it possible to offend a psychopath? As in, would you take offence at something someone says to you? I’m assuming that absence of emotional empathy, absence of bonding, emotional detachment prevents this?
I don't get offended, no. I can, however, see intent behind words. If a person is intending to be offensive in order to try and elicit an emotional response, regardless of its absence, it tells me what I need to know about a person.
This is AGI-fi: tales from the other side of the Singularity. Have a look around our Medium lineup, I think we got some pieces there that’ll make you laugh.
If some of your friends and family don't know you're a psychopath, do you have to put in more effort to keep in contact or have they just accepted this about you?
The absence of feeling is not the absence of Being. The fullness of feeling is not the fullness of Being. The sky does not lose itself in the wind, nor in the calm—it remains, untouched, ever-present.
As I re-read your post, I find myself considering a deeper question that extends beyond the contrast between psychopathy and neurotypicality: What, ultimately, is the self? And how much of what we take to be "who we are" is simply a pattern of thought, a habituated way of interpreting experience? You describe yourself as someone who observes, who models behavior but does not absorb it, who adapts without being changed. This is an interesting way of being, and in many ways, it reflects a truth that applies to all of us: we are not the emotions, thoughts, or roles we inhabit. These arise and pass, yet something remains—something that is not touched by any of it. The difference, perhaps, is that while you experience this as a baseline, an absence of deep emotional engagement, neurotypicals often feel caught in the waves of identification. But here’s the paradox: even for those who are highly emotional, is there truly a self at the center of it all? The bonds we form, the love we feel, the pain we endure—these feel intensely personal, yet they shift and change, and in that shifting, who is the one that remains? The joy of seeing a loved one, the grief of their absence—these arise, linger, and fade. The same is true for you, in a different way. You experience the world without emotional highs and lows, yet awareness remains, steady and unshaken. In this, are we really so different? You mention that neurotypicals might envy the psychopathic experience when they are suffering, but not when they are in states of joy. This is understandable—no one wants to feel pain. But isn’t it interesting that joy and sorrow are not opposites, but two sides of the same movement? The deeper the attachment, the greater the suffering in its loss. If we try to cling to one and push away the other, we remain caught in an endless cycle. You, in contrast, describe a state of relative stillness, a freedom from this cycle. And yet, the very fact that you contemplate these differences, that you reflect on what neurotypicals experience, suggests that you are not outside of it completely. There is still curiosity, still engagement, still something that watches. And that is where the real question lies. Not in whether one way of being is better than another, but in this: What is it that watches? Not the emotions, not the thoughts, not even the personality—what remains when all of that is seen for what it is? Is it truly different for you than for me? Or are we both simply manifestations of the same underlying reality, playing out in different forms? I appreciate this conversation—not because I seek to change your perspective, but because I find that in seeing through each other’s eyes, we come closer to recognizing that what we are looking for is not so different after all.
Postscript:
There is an old metaphor in Advaita Vedanta: the ocean and the wave. The wave may appear distinct, separate, with its own movement, its own shape, rising and falling, cresting and dissolving. It may believe itself to be apart from the ocean, struggling to maintain its form, fearing its dissolution. But what is a wave, if not the ocean itself, temporarily assuming a particular shape? From the standpoint of non-duality, the idea of a "self" as something distinct and independent—whether intensely emotional or emotionally muted—is a kind of illusion. The wave is never truly separate from the ocean. The thinker is never apart from thought, the observer is not other than the observed. The very sense of "I" that arises in any experience, whether neurotypical or psychopathic, is a transient movement in the vastness of awareness. And that awareness is not personal. It is not yours or mine. It simply is. Rupert Spira often speaks of the way we mistake ourselves for the content of experience rather than the space in which experience arises. He writes: "The separate self is simply the activity of resisting what is and seeking what is not." To resist what is—to wish to be free of suffering, or to wish to feel more deeply, or to desire one’s emotions to be other than they are—is to take the shape of a wave fighting against the ocean. But what if, for a moment, we let go of all ideas of what we are supposed to feel or not feel? What if, instead of identifying with the wave, we recognized ourselves as the ocean itself—vast, borderless, unshaken. It is tempting, in moments of struggle, to seek another way of being—to wish we were wired differently, to imagine that we would suffer less if we could adopt another’s mode of perception. But whatever we believe ourselves to be—rational, emotional, detached, overwhelmed—our true nature remains untouched beneath it all. And perhaps, in the stillness between thoughts, in the quiet recognition of awareness itself, there is a place where the distinction between you and me, between neurotypical and psychopathic, between seeker and sought—vanishes.
"What we long for most deeply is what we are, already." — Rupert Spira
Is it possible, then, that the angst that many neurotypicals experience, fear of death, an identity crises are because these emotions overwhelm their sense of identity. They realize that there is something more, but they cannot reach it? That sounds like Buddhism.
I'd say that forming waves is as much part of ocean as the stillness beneath them and that taking of shape is not merely resistance, but also the content of experience struggled with. That we do not feel and think and know same all the time all of us and have separate perspctives and needs that can get into conflict (important lesson for a baby) is what makes the shapes of separate waves. Resisting as much part of nature and not something against the ocean and its stillness. Ocean is not that still either actually. Currents and everything. But it is all made from the same stuff for sure and that stuff is prone to changing its distribution while being fairly indestructible on molecular level. I'd say, if we are meant to look past the temporary waveness then we do and we aren't we won't, both is being an ocean, both is wter' property to be expressed.
Also... There was some speaking about what remains apart from transient as if the transient ws false because of being transient and it kinda reminded me of the philosophical question and Japanese reality where each part of an object is replaced and a question arises whether it still is the same object. And there is reason to consider it so because of continuity and coherence of design. To come back to your point, one could also say it is the same because everthing is the ame, the object and its surrounding that is the source of its components and enactor of the changes on the object. Just felt like adding that the forces playing out in the matterial are as much of the world as the matterial. Some even argue matterial is illusion, just a wavelength, the force everthing and thus the ocean is the result and manifestation of the forces shaping its surface into waves rather than something separate defined by remaining in contrast of passing states caused by the forces.
You're so right about NTs liking some aspects of psychopathy, & I was guilty of that too lol. Though, realistically, I would rather return back to my neurotypical state, had there been a way for me to become otherwise. Yes, as you mentioned, there are some great advantages, but you're also so right about life being uninteresting otherwise. The downs of life also makes the ups more valuable. If I was just constantly happy, it'd become the norm & I'd yearn for more.
Psychopathy in certain doses can be beneficial.Having emotion and a rational way of dealing with them is better.One of many things people can learn from psychopathy.How to think,how to behave and how to deal with emotions.Aldo people that are higher in psychopathy and smartnes,that are not selfish do far better in life.
I wonder whether at least some psychopaths can have the positive emotions without the negative ones. My father, whose murder case famously changed the criminal justice system by getting brain scans admitted in the guilty/not guilty phase as I chronicled in my book Full Frontal Murder Memoir, had a brain cyst that some would argue turned him into a psychopath. You can see his brain scans by Googling “Herbert Weinstein Brain” and checking the images tab. He had the positive emotions in a BIG way, but had a clear lack of empathy, anxiety, and negative emotions. I experienced his big positive emotions and lack of negative emotions my whole life and never would have known a brain problem existed had he not murdered the woman he loved and tossed her body out the window of their 12th floor Upper East Side apartment at the age of 65 resulting in a full neurological work up including the scans that are now in every criminal law textbook. So I truly wonder whether a person born as a psychopath couldn’t have this emotional configuration as well. His cyst was the size of an orange and pressed on his frontal and temporal lobes. They think he had it growing his whole life and that it had recently increased in size around the time of the murder.
I appreciate the clarity and introspection in your post. It’s rare to see such a lucid account of psychopathy from someone who embodies it, and I find it valuable to hear this perspective articulated so openly. Your self-awareness and ability to analyze the differences between psychopathic and neurotypical cognition make for a thought-provoking read. That said, I would like to offer a response from the perspective of someone who is neurotypical—more than that, someone who experiences emotions intensely, who feels deeply connected to others, and who, in many ways, operates from an intuitive sense of empathy rather than a cognitive one. You describe the process of neurotypicals adjusting to you, while you adjust to them, but with a fundamental difference: for you, this adaptation is behavioral, detached from any deep emotional recalibration. I find it intriguing how you frame your ability to learn consideration, to model certain social behaviors, and yet remain essentially unaffected by them. From my vantage point, this highlights a crucial distinction: neurotypicals do not merely adopt behaviors; we absorb and internalize experiences in a way that reshapes who we are. Our emotional bonds and connections are not just social contracts or patterns we follow—they are, in a very real sense, an extension of our being. Your post suggests that some neurotypicals might envy the psychopathic way of processing (or, rather, not processing) emotions, particularly in times of pain. This is likely true—who wouldn’t want to bypass suffering? But this framing, in my view, oversimplifies the role of emotion in neurotypical life. It is not merely a matter of cost-benefit, where we accept pain in order to receive joy. Rather, the depth of our emotional experiences is what gives life its meaning. The highs and lows are not two separate phenomena that must be weighed against each other; they are part of the same fabric. You emphasize that neurotypicals cannot simply "behave away" their emotions. I completely agree. But I would take it further: emotions are not just obstacles to be managed or endured. They are not static, unchanging entities that control us unless we find a way to override them. They are dynamic, fluid, and deeply interconnected with our sense of identity, our relationships, and even our perception of time and reality. To try to eliminate them—or to view them as merely "problems"—would be to lose something essential, something that makes the world vibrant, meaningful, and profound. You mention that neurotypicals who try to emulate psychopathy might cause themselves emotional harm, and I think this is a key insight. But I wonder—do you see the reverse happening as well? That is, do you think prolonged proximity to deeply emotional individuals ever shapes or shifts you in ways you do not expect? Even if the change is not emotional in nature, does immersion in a world so governed by feeling ever leave its imprint on you? You write that you have learned behaviors from others, but have you ever encountered something that, despite yourself, actually moved you? Lastly, your curiosity about how much of neurotypical emotional life is innate versus shaped by environment is a fascinating one. I think you’re right to suspect that there is a great deal of social reinforcement involved, but I would argue that at the core, there is something irreducible—something that is not merely trained into us, but intrinsic to the way we experience existence. Perhaps this is what ultimately separates our modes of being: for you, emotions are an external phenomenon, something to observe, navigate, or ignore; for neurotypicals, they are not just a part of life, but the very lens through which life is lived. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you for sharing yours.
Athena,
Thank you for your explorations/posts. I have, as a rebooting NT, been exploring the actual usefulness of emotion (if any), and reading your posts, Kevin Dutton, Zen philosophy etc., has been very helpful.
So you can know my perspective if interested: (for brevity I will use bullet points)
Issues with Emotion:
External focus of identity/fulfillment vs internal focus of same
Knee jerk response vs aware and selective listening
Addiction vs conscious attachment and disconnection
Value/liability of automatic neurotransmitter response vs rational self selected efficacy
My opinion: Most NT’s are unconscious devotees/addicts of the “Church of Emotion and Herd”, with all the attending erratic faith based/junkie justifications for conflicting/hypocritical values, choices, judgements, actions, results, etc.
Learning about neurotransmitters and variations in response to same has led me to see emotions from a more rational, big picture POV. For most of my life I have fought a huge battle between a strong internal focus and traumatically conditioned obedience to the Church of Emotion and Herd. My natural perspectives, choices and actions were always in conflict with what I was being taught to be, and I had to learn the ability to self squash to “get along”. I was always most effective in crisis, sports, hobbies, skills, etc being myself, but was most socially compatible being “Churchy”. I bounced back and forth with much drama. At some point a choice of sides was required. I gave up the Church.
From my experience, NT’s can learn to mute response to emotion, and in time, emotions can fade from “lack of use”. For me personally, the more faded they became, the more clear, content and effective my life became. That includes both negative and positive emotions, which have become for me, just two sides of the same addiction. Glorifying positive emotions is like saying the “high of heroin” makes all the rest of that lifestyle worth it. You, as a psychopath, have an inherent lack of response, and that genetic possibility makes me wonder if there is a spectrum of genetic neurotransmitter response from overwhelming to non existent, with all the ensuing behavior choices. While not psychopathically without response, I wonder if I am inherently low on the response scale, which when I was young, led to choices and actions that others found highly disturbing, which led to the ferocity of their attempts to re-educate/redirect me. I grew up with two “life tracks”if you will, forever hopping from one to the other. Just FYI, my conflicts rarely involved the law, but were more about the way I did things vs the way others did things.
As an NT, my struggle was “which is right: the Church or me?”, with all the pinball bouncing between self condemnation and self affirmation. As a psychopath, I believe your struggle was not “which is right”, but “what do I have to do to effectively co exist with all of them?”. While I am not free of emotional noise, this is essentially where I am now and reading your posts has helped me see the challenges of that choice more clearly.
The interesting question for me now is “Is there actually any value to emotion at all? Is it actually just a liability? In my experience, nothing corrupts perception of reality like emotion, whether positive or negative. I use it mostly as a source of humor now. Which leads me to the question: is psychopath humor different too?
No response necessary, I just wanted to say thank you and provide some context for my appreciation. I am however, curious about the answer to that last question…
The question about Athenas sense of humor comes up time and time again; perhaps Athena would like to write a post about it?
Perhaps, but I don't know how to describe it. If something is funny to me, it is. That’s not a lot to go on for writing a post
Great piece--I really enjoy your writing (I know you get that all the time). I have to wonder though, on the lines of muted positive emotions for you--do you ever experience true passion? My knee jerk answer for you would be no, but I'm still learning and I wanted to ask. For instance, I am extremely passionate about creating art because it influences me emotionally, and vice versa (my emotions influence my art). I guess in the same manner one would listen to a song that would bring up memories and emotions tied to those memories, or even a song that one would hear that just touches them in a way that cannot be explained. So I guess I'm curious if you ever feel drawn to something that is more than surface level--I hope that makes sense.
You are correct, my guess is no. Its description doesn't sound familiar to me. I do like music, but I don't have what you describe.
I figured as much. Thanks for the response. As a follow-up, Is there anything you really enjoy doing (hobbies, activities, etc) that you feel like you thoroughly enjoy and wouldn't be the same person without?
No, if I can't do one thing, I'll find something else. Usually things don't remain interesting, anyway
It's quite interesting seeing those suituations from the perspective of the NT's. Everybody wants to be a psychopath in order to mute their "bad" emotions. It will never happen in their life and trying to cosplay psychopathy is really bringing harm to them.
I hope you keep writing about this topic.
I agree, it will bring harm to them, and I have been working on a piece that will go up next week, or the week after that touches on a conversation that lightly hovers around the idea of bad emotions and how people avoid or embrace them.
Indeed, suffering is the price to pay feeling joy in life, everyone suffers, you too but you are allow to have other mechanisms that make you resilient to it, however, and as you said, NT's have a broader range of emotions which make them "feel" more, it's equally for the bad and the good. If they want to suffer less, cosplaying psychopathy is definitely not the answer, rather creating their own mechanisms of emotions management and control specific for their needs.
I think you nailed this Athena in terms of what NT’s are unable to do emotionally and I agree with your reasoning as to why.
One thing I realised, and only over the past week or so, is how much emotional baggage I carry round from past and in some cases current relationships. I realised that I often worry that I have offended people if they don’t automatically provide me with the feedback I am expecting. When I thought about it a little more logically, I realised that these feelings are ‘me generated’. I often have no evidence to support the fact I have offended someone, not really, they just might not respond immediately or might be busy with life stuff. I sit there wasting all that energy fretting, when really the whole thing is a hangover from my past and nothing to do with the now.
Use logic, look for solid evidence, that’s what a psychopath relies on, not emotions, which whilst truly lovely to experience at times, can also be extremely misleading.
Your article ties in nicely with realisations I’ve been having this week.
Is it possible to offend a psychopath? As in, would you take offence at something someone says to you? I’m assuming that absence of emotional empathy, absence of bonding, emotional detachment prevents this?
I don't get offended, no. I can, however, see intent behind words. If a person is intending to be offensive in order to try and elicit an emotional response, regardless of its absence, it tells me what I need to know about a person.
Thank you for answering, that makes perfect sense.
Not a problem
And besides psychopathy,stoicism and buddisim ca be good.
Indeed
Great article Athena, thanks for the share. I think the points you make are spot on.
I'm glad you liked it, Emma
hey Athena, you seem bored, so -- here's a change of pace.
Remember that story I was trying to convince you to help me write, couple years back?
AI *already wrote* it for us, and it's shaping up pretty interesting if I may say so.
And here's where I loop right back to you, once again hoping to engage your prodigious attention:
https://medium.com/@S01n/seed-doc-tenor-poise-when-an-asd-paradox-consults-a-factor-1-parallel-2bcea4129c51
---
Let me know if you'd like to hear more!
Cheers,
Doso
I will take a look
This is AGI-fi: tales from the other side of the Singularity. Have a look around our Medium lineup, I think we got some pieces there that’ll make you laugh.
If some of your friends and family don't know you're a psychopath, do you have to put in more effort to keep in contact or have they just accepted this about you?
I have to put in effort, and I fail at it pretty much all the time, and no, it does not make them particularly happy.
Isn't it straining those relationships?
Perhaps, but I would have to ask to know, and if I don't call, when would I ask?
Oh God that cracked me up. I missed it the first time.
The absence of feeling is not the absence of Being. The fullness of feeling is not the fullness of Being. The sky does not lose itself in the wind, nor in the calm—it remains, untouched, ever-present.
Indeed
As I re-read your post, I find myself considering a deeper question that extends beyond the contrast between psychopathy and neurotypicality: What, ultimately, is the self? And how much of what we take to be "who we are" is simply a pattern of thought, a habituated way of interpreting experience? You describe yourself as someone who observes, who models behavior but does not absorb it, who adapts without being changed. This is an interesting way of being, and in many ways, it reflects a truth that applies to all of us: we are not the emotions, thoughts, or roles we inhabit. These arise and pass, yet something remains—something that is not touched by any of it. The difference, perhaps, is that while you experience this as a baseline, an absence of deep emotional engagement, neurotypicals often feel caught in the waves of identification. But here’s the paradox: even for those who are highly emotional, is there truly a self at the center of it all? The bonds we form, the love we feel, the pain we endure—these feel intensely personal, yet they shift and change, and in that shifting, who is the one that remains? The joy of seeing a loved one, the grief of their absence—these arise, linger, and fade. The same is true for you, in a different way. You experience the world without emotional highs and lows, yet awareness remains, steady and unshaken. In this, are we really so different? You mention that neurotypicals might envy the psychopathic experience when they are suffering, but not when they are in states of joy. This is understandable—no one wants to feel pain. But isn’t it interesting that joy and sorrow are not opposites, but two sides of the same movement? The deeper the attachment, the greater the suffering in its loss. If we try to cling to one and push away the other, we remain caught in an endless cycle. You, in contrast, describe a state of relative stillness, a freedom from this cycle. And yet, the very fact that you contemplate these differences, that you reflect on what neurotypicals experience, suggests that you are not outside of it completely. There is still curiosity, still engagement, still something that watches. And that is where the real question lies. Not in whether one way of being is better than another, but in this: What is it that watches? Not the emotions, not the thoughts, not even the personality—what remains when all of that is seen for what it is? Is it truly different for you than for me? Or are we both simply manifestations of the same underlying reality, playing out in different forms? I appreciate this conversation—not because I seek to change your perspective, but because I find that in seeing through each other’s eyes, we come closer to recognizing that what we are looking for is not so different after all.
Postscript:
There is an old metaphor in Advaita Vedanta: the ocean and the wave. The wave may appear distinct, separate, with its own movement, its own shape, rising and falling, cresting and dissolving. It may believe itself to be apart from the ocean, struggling to maintain its form, fearing its dissolution. But what is a wave, if not the ocean itself, temporarily assuming a particular shape? From the standpoint of non-duality, the idea of a "self" as something distinct and independent—whether intensely emotional or emotionally muted—is a kind of illusion. The wave is never truly separate from the ocean. The thinker is never apart from thought, the observer is not other than the observed. The very sense of "I" that arises in any experience, whether neurotypical or psychopathic, is a transient movement in the vastness of awareness. And that awareness is not personal. It is not yours or mine. It simply is. Rupert Spira often speaks of the way we mistake ourselves for the content of experience rather than the space in which experience arises. He writes: "The separate self is simply the activity of resisting what is and seeking what is not." To resist what is—to wish to be free of suffering, or to wish to feel more deeply, or to desire one’s emotions to be other than they are—is to take the shape of a wave fighting against the ocean. But what if, for a moment, we let go of all ideas of what we are supposed to feel or not feel? What if, instead of identifying with the wave, we recognized ourselves as the ocean itself—vast, borderless, unshaken. It is tempting, in moments of struggle, to seek another way of being—to wish we were wired differently, to imagine that we would suffer less if we could adopt another’s mode of perception. But whatever we believe ourselves to be—rational, emotional, detached, overwhelmed—our true nature remains untouched beneath it all. And perhaps, in the stillness between thoughts, in the quiet recognition of awareness itself, there is a place where the distinction between you and me, between neurotypical and psychopathic, between seeker and sought—vanishes.
"What we long for most deeply is what we are, already." — Rupert Spira
Is it possible, then, that the angst that many neurotypicals experience, fear of death, an identity crises are because these emotions overwhelm their sense of identity. They realize that there is something more, but they cannot reach it? That sounds like Buddhism.
I'd say that forming waves is as much part of ocean as the stillness beneath them and that taking of shape is not merely resistance, but also the content of experience struggled with. That we do not feel and think and know same all the time all of us and have separate perspctives and needs that can get into conflict (important lesson for a baby) is what makes the shapes of separate waves. Resisting as much part of nature and not something against the ocean and its stillness. Ocean is not that still either actually. Currents and everything. But it is all made from the same stuff for sure and that stuff is prone to changing its distribution while being fairly indestructible on molecular level. I'd say, if we are meant to look past the temporary waveness then we do and we aren't we won't, both is being an ocean, both is wter' property to be expressed.
Also... There was some speaking about what remains apart from transient as if the transient ws false because of being transient and it kinda reminded me of the philosophical question and Japanese reality where each part of an object is replaced and a question arises whether it still is the same object. And there is reason to consider it so because of continuity and coherence of design. To come back to your point, one could also say it is the same because everthing is the ame, the object and its surrounding that is the source of its components and enactor of the changes on the object. Just felt like adding that the forces playing out in the matterial are as much of the world as the matterial. Some even argue matterial is illusion, just a wavelength, the force everthing and thus the ocean is the result and manifestation of the forces shaping its surface into waves rather than something separate defined by remaining in contrast of passing states caused by the forces.
You're so right about NTs liking some aspects of psychopathy, & I was guilty of that too lol. Though, realistically, I would rather return back to my neurotypical state, had there been a way for me to become otherwise. Yes, as you mentioned, there are some great advantages, but you're also so right about life being uninteresting otherwise. The downs of life also makes the ups more valuable. If I was just constantly happy, it'd become the norm & I'd yearn for more.
Being the best version of yourself is always a good path
A good post Athena
Psychopathy in certain doses can be beneficial.Having emotion and a rational way of dealing with them is better.One of many things people can learn from psychopathy.How to think,how to behave and how to deal with emotions.Aldo people that are higher in psychopathy and smartnes,that are not selfish do far better in life.
Likely true
I wonder whether at least some psychopaths can have the positive emotions without the negative ones. My father, whose murder case famously changed the criminal justice system by getting brain scans admitted in the guilty/not guilty phase as I chronicled in my book Full Frontal Murder Memoir, had a brain cyst that some would argue turned him into a psychopath. You can see his brain scans by Googling “Herbert Weinstein Brain” and checking the images tab. He had the positive emotions in a BIG way, but had a clear lack of empathy, anxiety, and negative emotions. I experienced his big positive emotions and lack of negative emotions my whole life and never would have known a brain problem existed had he not murdered the woman he loved and tossed her body out the window of their 12th floor Upper East Side apartment at the age of 65 resulting in a full neurological work up including the scans that are now in every criminal law textbook. So I truly wonder whether a person born as a psychopath couldn’t have this emotional configuration as well. His cyst was the size of an orange and pressed on his frontal and temporal lobes. They think he had it growing his whole life and that it had recently increased in size around the time of the murder.
I don't understand why you give a fuck about this.
How you affect the world, affects your experience in the world.