Quote:
Originally Posted by hazn
I wouldn't say they're skilled... the reality is it's quite sick. They're sick. There's nothing skillful about finding someone who is highly empathic, lacks self-esteem, has issues with boundaries, etc, and getting them to buy into your story. There's nothing skillful about abusing someone who was unhealthy to begin with.
|
I don't believe skills are specifically defined as being positive; having negative results doesn't negate the existence of a skill, and things that may start as mere traits can certainly become skills in time. Similarly, many politicians have the specific skill of being able to make everyone they meet feel as though they are special to them, and while they may be the most insincere, duplicitous civil "servants" known to man, this doesn't change the fact that it's skillful of them. If the trait of being able to so completely maintain the unconditional love of others could be bottled, you'd be a millionaire (and many are). 
__________________
“We use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them. One of things the screen hides most effectively is the body, our own body, by which I mean, the ins and outs of it, its interiors. Like a veil thrown over the skin to secure its modesty, the screen partially removes from the mind the inner states of the body, those that constitute the flow of life as it wanders in the journey of each day.”
— Antonio R. Damasio, “The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness” (p.28)
|