On Being Alone

I am a person who is mostly alone, not lonely necessarily, but alone. I am not good in crowds, in groups or in any setting where there are a lot of people. I have become more of an introvert as I get older. I think about this often and sometimes try to overcome my reluctance to talk to other people.

I talk a lot to my husband who has become very good at interrupting me and correcting anything he knows or thinks is incorrect. This drives me crazy! But I am sure I do things that make him upset too.

I try not to discuss things that will upset me when he makes those corrections but I never seem to succeed.

When I get the facts wrong I get very upset at myself as well as him.

This seems so trivial that I have no more to say about it.

On Psychopaths

Last night I watched a TV documentary called "I, Psychopath" in which a journalist attempted to delineate the characteristics of a psychopath from scientific journals and writers and from a man who admitted to being a psychopath. I found it very interesting because it made me realize that I have had contact with a psychopath who was a member of my mother's household during her third marriage and who made her life miserable especially during her last two years' of life. A psychopath has no conscience; a psychopath does not show emotion; a psychopath is narcissistic; a psychopath does not have empathy. A psychopath takes great pride in manipulating others and lashes out in anger towards others for no apparent reason. A psychopath plays with others' minds until those around her/him begin to doubt their own view of themselves.

On Thoughts That Disturb

Now that I have almost reached my "threescore and ten" years, I often have weird and fleeting feelings of nothingness. I worry about how I will face my own death, especially if it is slow and lingering. I never experienced these feelings until recently. I think they can be traced back to my mother's death in January 2003, a death that was particularly unsettling because of the animosity shown to me by my mother's "other" family, that is, her third husband and his children that she raised. That experience was the beginning of my feelings of being expendable, of being worth less than I thought. To really know oneself is not a pleasant experience and I can fully understand why human beings seek to distract themselves from that pursuit in all the myriad ways that are available to us.