Thanks for these well thought out responses. All of you.

As much as I appreciate the fact that you state we're still horribly unsympathetic to types of mental illness, shouldn't we extend the same sympathy to the ignorant who deride the behavior or express cruelty toward the mentally ill? By this I don't mean condone it, but show compassion for the damage and insecurities that lead them into the vicious cycle of hate. Their irrational understanding is never of their choosing. I don't buy the notion AT ALL that everyone can overcome their circumstances. No, not one bit. After all, they are experiencing a type of imbalance you could say,..of their own. I only ask this question aloud because I'm not really sure of the answer. As my posts would bear out, I'm often torn between compassion and deep misanthropy that stems from a lack of returned empathy that makes me deeply suspicious of my own inconstant empathetic leanings. It's then that I realize that maybe I'm operating exclusively on emotion and merely projecting my wishes. As much as I try to deviate from the seemingly inevitable notion that even compassion stems from self-interest, I'm not sure if such a deviation is possible without being a masochist. It's my own personal preference, but I think we should be striving to change this. Maybe my inclination is to be too much of a turn-the-other-cheek person (except when I'm not and my bitterness spills over, and feels justified) unnecessarily; key word: inclination - because of the misanthropy it cuts me short of being sacrificial all too often. I equate empathy with a kind of servility - to put it strangely, but I've always seen that discipline as virtuous. That's the essence of it to me. That being said, I waiver between wondering if these types should be handled with aggression and shellshocked into fear or shame to change their ways since this seems to be the only effective technique for some, or possibly disarmed with kindness if they're receptive to it. Some people's insecurities are so stamped shut in them that they may well never discard the automatic defense mechanism because it's considered unquestionably true in their eyes, yet as I say in other posts I'm very much for salvaging types that society would otherwise brand an irredeemable miscreant. It's always peculiar to me which ignorance we're sympathetic to and which we openly hate. We give up far too easily on people. Even those hobbled with mental imbalance of their own are quick to want to pull the plug on certain types of people - - they are quick to join in the same superiority and judgment that they decried...sadly lending credence to my belief that society would practically implode without the option to lord over at least SOMEONE. To give them the high of being 'better than', because without some scale of worth humans can barely function. **And yes, I realize I just changed 'sympathy' to 'empathy'. The distinction becomes blurred to me sometimes. I use the words interchangeably.**

Ah, I see where you're coming from now when you would rather not show sympathy toward their actions. Yes, absolutely. I'm afraid that's probably right. I had been saying to those who would listen, for a few years, that we create these societal punching bags, but I started to tone down such talk because I'm not always sure when I'm using selective perception to cook up a false narrative. Nor am I always assured when it is that I'm being hypersensitive or skewing things due to imbalance (given that I have depression) and when it is that someone is genuinely exploiting the mentally ill; and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone that takes a particularly strong ethical stance on mental illness or really much of a strong ethical stance on anything due to morality's potentially 'uncool'/'passé' nature. But in the last two years or so, I'm pretty well convinced my suspicions of average peoples' glib dismissal of, and lingering bias are as well-grounded as I thought. I mention sometimes in other posts that as predisposed to pessimism as I already am, there are instances where I still underestimate the wretched parts of humanity. While everyone's not party to such behavior, you're definitely right in that this is yet another variable that keeps the depressed and other mentally ill individuals questioning themselves. The sometimes convincing logic laid out by oblivious boot-strapper types will have you buy into the idea that your depression is a poor intellectual choice or a character defect, and when you see someone you thought was much more humane and considerate to this kind of thing partake in the gladiatorial skewering of the crazy among us or other easy societal targets, OR at the very least display a morally indifferent attitude to mental illness, this only serves to make you question yourself more; as well as sour you against everyone: your 'heros', your 'loved ones', etc. etc.. It can create a negative feedback loop of doubt wherein you question how much of your disposition can be controlled, or, you know, how much your depression/anxiety can be outmaneuvered with autonomous action. Discounting the fact that it's a genetic inevitability in cases. Countless people still don't grasp this concept despite its constant reinforcement.

As evidenced above, this is certainly the thought I lean toward also. Though if this behavior is so commonly shared by such a large segment of the population, would it constitute as an illness at that point? I refer to it frequently as a type of 'imbalance' - I do indeed consider ignorance a form of 'imbalance' in the sense that they're not experiencing the same brain chemistry as a more well-adjusted person (subjective, but we of course can empirically track differences in others' mirror neurons) - that becomes a societal norm. Maybe this is splitting hairs. I get the thrust of what you're saying. I don't mean to 'sperg it up here.

These cultural factors are all symptoms of the original, underlying psychological motive. Not so much the why. Oh, agreed that there's most certainly an established order that a great majority gravitate to, and it's probably the greatest source of my misery and frustration. Oddly enough though, this herd mentality is less prevalent than I conjured up. The more I go on with life, I see more and more complexity to people. The truth is labyrinthine and messy, and rarely what we think it is. I too neatly dismissed so many others as sharing in a hive mind but have clearly seen that a great many others share a similar view. Don't get me wrong; groupthink is there, and it's horrible. But here's the thing: I've seen people lament it and proceed to engage in the same behavior, either with conscious hypocrisy or not. I don't claim to be above such pressures myself despite deviation from uniformity taking such high priority for me. Ultimately striving for true individuality is fruitless since we all default to sharing universal feelings required for living. However, that shouldn't preclude one from wresting their faculties from a preventable and imposed order that originated from some people that broke away from an established order and became a new system of order itself.


Alright, but I have to ask, what are you basing this on? I'll have to assume the mention of God is less literal as Vibrating Obsidian mentioned, but it may very well not be. You say 'I don't think' and 'perhaps', as if to suggest it's speculative. What leads you to this idea? Other than the DID example.

Indeed, and I'm basically trying to get to the roots of that psychological mechanism.

Tell me about it. I'm with you there 100%. This has been the focal point of my frustration. Particularly so when it comes to people grasping multiple angles of something. For example, the average mind usually sees statements in terms of: -you're agreeing with what I say. -You're not agreeing with what I say. It's not quite THAT superficial, but there's rarely room for in-between with others. Oh and there's massive amounts of ambiguity in life. You have to speak VERY BROADLY AND EXPLICITLY with people or their eyes start glazing over. I heard someone once dub that 'bovine eyes', and it was dead on; that sort of dead-eyed look cows have. That's why it's important to pepper your sentences with the word ****, since it commands attention. I'll add that peoples' threshold for nuance is shockingly less than I remember. I gave them much more credit in the past. It's a type of laziness that needs to be hurdled.

While I am no concise expositor, truth requires multifaceted explanation. I don't think this is unfair to state. Summing up life into neat little categories, adorable little visuals..Reductionist views usually just leave out way too much. This world just cannot be cleanly explained away with only tiny blurbs of info and quotes that try to glibly elucidate the convoluted; quotes can be parsed unmercifully. Silly little platitudes is all they are. I'll admit that I chew up a lot of the margins, stubbornly, but this is both a reaction to how little I'm able to say in the context of everyday socializing and what I just mentioned - Great writers and the like can frame things in simpler terms, but even they get the short shrift sometimes. Minimalist explanations bother me. Usually, but not always, when they're directed my way they smack of apathy. (Could be my bias.) Sad that I have to state something curt..and probably untrue, to ignite interest. Provocative simplicity has more impact, but there's intelligent people out there that'll call you on that, and I preemptively try to combat that unless I'm having to lure someone in initially. If I didn't have such an interest in the extreme in life, or have an alternate predilection for simplicity, I'd probably be utterly unable to talk; already, it's hard enough. Nor am I an intellectual, so I can't even begin to fathom how tortured an intellectual operating on an entirely different language (at least those that want to enact tangible change among 'the masses') must feel at times. For every rockstar-like Neil DeGrasse Tyson with a commoner's touch, there may be a thousand more abstruse intellects lost in translation. So, arguably lacking in emotional intelligence. Hence, parenthetical asides, bloviating, stem-winding micro thoughts.

Volume or density of text does not = good, per se. But it's a necessary thing for me to cram so much extra detail into my posts. There's no other way. It's a compulsion to not misrepresent myself and it STILL ****ing happens. I can't quite detach and see it from another's perspective, as reading reams of text has never bothered me. Just because I can't conceive of it doesn't mean it should be the case for everyone, but I'd love to convert people to this way of thinking. This actually wasn't such a big deal back when I gave people the benefit of the doubt. For instance, I knew many people who could knock out books and glean far more detail better than myself. So it's all very confusing. I know the patient, erudite sorts are out there somewhere, but it's like they're hiding away somewhere in little pockets of the world.


pachyderm, I enjoyed that answer. You also delineated that I wasn't specifically referring to mental illness too. Anyway, I hadn't even really considered it in terms of procreation. Should have been obvious, in hindsight. Those with similar genes seek each other out. But right below this part of the quote you acknowledge:

So that's my only criteria for wondering if it's not solely about procreation. Since we have, and have HAD for quite some time, the capability of transcending animalistic impulses with higher thinking..types of critical thinking that have more or less been embedded in us over time and become reflexive..then why are we defaulting to this basal reaction? We're still a work in progress, I get it. But why, when the brutish impulses are not necessarily, entirely automatic in us now would the sensory of the new or different be so jarring?......and I will grant you some people purport to embrace the exotic and new but all the while sneer at the odd-looking, so the psychology is still dormant...I know people like that. I feel like the answer is even more complex, as answers tend to be. I normally contend that human beings are like a bacteria, with our sole biological purpose to keep the species going and spread, spread, spread. Now I'm questioning this. What would be the evolutionary purpose behind being given the tools of higher reasoning that would lead us away from the procreative instinct? Or is this just a mutation that has spread over time?

Also, as far as for mating, 'the different' has actually served as a benefit for procreation in instances. Take peacocks for example, where the term 'peacocking' gets its name. The eye-catching and, yes, unique can be an attractant too. Usually only if it's aggressively ostentatious. That may account for why you see certain members of society suddenly garner 'weirdly cool' status. In general I should concede that not all different things are cast aside so fervently. It's odd that many humans both recoil from and hail originality. Perhaps I should not have made such a blanket statement of other rejecting the different since there are quite a few exceptions. The fact remains that people are more likely to opt for sameness; the homogeneous.

You're right in that fear seems to be the greatest factor in all of this. So, once again, how much of it is evolutionary I don't know, seeing that social programming plays such a big part. Still mirroring those hunter-gatherer archetypes to a certain extent however. Why, when we're gleaning more and more knowledge (more than we ever have, arguably----but humanity has the capacity to slip out of enlightenment as history would show) and self-awareness of our primal ways, we fall victim to them still...hook, line, and sinker, is puzzling to say the least. Emotions take precedence over the rational no doubt, and yet we're learning they're more malleable than we were lead to believe with new research.

Do you think it's difficult due to a combination of laziness and, say, stigma? Or do you mean simply fighting the overwhelming urge to think about one's self first before considering another's plight?