Narcissism with Sam Vaknin

Abuse is never love and true love is enough to sustain a relationship. Heart Has a Mind of Its Own Love defies logic, reason, and analysis. Love denies age and distance and circumstance. Love transcends boundaries and interests and fear itself. Love thrives on adversity, complexity, and dreams. Love just is: known instantly by its proponents, worshipped by its adherents, defeating all its enemies. Every setback in love is temporary, every obstacle is overcome, every limit crossed. Love triumphs where nothing does, flourishes without soil or water, prevails as it becomes. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

The following techniques are used in CBT and psychodrama, especially for cluster B personality disorders. Doubling: The therapist or counsellor acts and emulates the client’s emotions and behaviors. The therapist verbalize what the client may be thinking or what they seem to be withholding as well as the client’s disavowed and defended against behaviors. Doubling connects the client’s internal reality with external reality (restores reality testing via insight). The client then acknowledges that he sees himself in his double. Mirroring: The client observes others as they act out scenes, events, and conversations for his benefit. This way, he gains perspective and some emotional distance and better understands his emotions. Role-playing: The client assumes the role of a particular person or object, that is a source of stress or conflict in their life. Role reversal: The client acts the role of another person in their life (could be the therapist or counsellor) while someone else (usually the therapist or counsellor) plays the part of the client. This can help improve empathy and understanding of other people’s perspective and separateness. Soliloquy: The client describes his inner thoughts and feelings to an audience (e.g., the therapist or counsellor). This way he gains greater insight into his inner feelings and thoughts and experiences catharsis. LITERATURE Roleplay in Psychotherapy:General effects of roleplay techniques in psychotherapy by Roger Schaller, 25th June 2021 https://psychodrama.world/method/roleplay-in-psychotherapy-general-effects-of-roleplay-techniques-in-psychotherapy/ Blatner, A. & Cukier, R. (2007). Moreno’s basic concepts. In: Baim, C., Burmeister, J. & Maciel, M. (Editors). Psychodrama – Advances in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge Castonguay, L.G., & Beutler, L.E. (2006). Principles of therapeutic change: A task force on participants, relationships, and techniques factors. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62, 631–638. Gallese, V., Migone, P. & Eagle, M. (2006). La simulazione incarnata: i neuroni specchio, le basi neurofisiologiche dell’intersoggettivita ed alcune implicazioni per la psicoanalisi. Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane XL,3: 543-580. www.psicoterapiascienzeumane.it Hammond, B. (2014). Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Psychodrama. In: Holmes, P, Farrall M. & Kirk, K. (Editors): Empowering Therapeutic Practice. Integrating Psychodrama into other Therapies. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Hayes, S. C., Follette, V. M., & Linehan, M. M. (Eds.). (2004). Mindfulness and acceptance: Expanding the cognitive-behavioral tradition. New York: Guilford Press. Malloch, S. & Trevarthen, C. (2009). Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Orlinsky,D.E., Grawe, K. & Parks, B.K. (1994). Process and Outcome in Psychotherapy. In: Allen E. Bergin, Sol L. Garfield: Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behaviour Change. 4th Edition. 1994, 270–376. Schaller, R. (2016, 2.Aufl.). Stellen Sie sich vor, Sie sind…- Das Ein-Personen-Rollenspiel in Beratung, Coaching und Therapie. Bern: Hogrefe Schaller, R. (2017). Regiegespräch – die zentrale Technik für das Psychodrama im Einzelsetting. Zeitschrift für Psychodrama und Soziometrie, 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11620-017-0393-x Tschacher, W. Junghan, U.N. & Pfammatter, M.(2014). Towards a Taxonomy of Common Factors in Psychotherapy – Results of an Expert Survey. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 21, 82-96. Published online 6 November 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/cpp.1822 Tschacher, W. & Pfammatter, M. (2016). Embodiment in Psychotherapy – A Necessary Complement to the Canon of Common Factors? European Psychotherapy, 2016/2017, pp. 5-21. CIPMedien https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/93002 Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

I am moving to Budapest to serve as a financial and political consultant and analyst. I will continue to upload content here and offer mental health counselling via digital or electronic means. But I am discontinuing all other activities in the field after 26 years. My health is failing and I am no longer up to the task of coping in the toxic environment that the online world has become. Email: samvaknin@gmail.com Phone: +38970565488

Video presentation to the 8th International Conference on Mental Health and Psychiatry, Frankfurt, August 16-17, 2023 1. The codependent controls from the bottom. She uses her neediness and clinginess to rule and to extort her intimate partner. The Borderline surrenders to her intimate partner: he is tasked by her with stabilizing her moods and regulating her emotions. 2. Abuse is the glue that holds dysfunctional relationships together: it is proof of love and identified with it. Healthy people walk away when they are victimized - the mentally ill bond and get attached. 3. The mentally ill prefer objects to people and attempt to objectify others. Objects are more predictable and controllable. 4. Approach avoidance repetition compulsion should not be confused or conflated with intermittent reinforcement. The first is a reactive pattern to the twin anxieties: abandonment vs. engulfment. The second is the coercive control technique that results in trauma bonding. Borderlines often feel that the only things they have to offer are sex and drama. Their dysregulation is their only asset. They are but a spectacle. 5. The empty schizoid core at the heart of disorders of the self (such as narcissism and borderline) is habituated: gradually it becomes a choice. Absence of being guarantees invulnerability and impermeability. Invulnerability signaling is at the core of the grandiosity of the psychopathic narcissist: a defiant “see if I care” attitude, no one and nothing have the slightest power over me, I never get attached, emotions are weaknesses, I am a free spirit, a law unto my own. This attitude leads to some counterintuitive behavioral outcomes. The psychopathic narcissist never engages in mate guarding. His message to other men: “The women in my life mean so little to me that you can have them, if you wish. They are dispensable, fungible, and interchangeable. They have no power over me, nothing they do matters or has the capacity to hurt me.” Another example: “Go ahead and plagiarize my work and my ideas. They mean little to me. I can generate revolutionary breakthroughs faster than you can steal them!” Harvey Cleckley, the author of “Mask of Sanity”, was repeatedly stunned by what he called the psychopathic narcissist’s “rejection of life”. The ultimate in invulnerability signaling is all-pervasive ostentatious apathy: the profound neglect and abandonment of all personal goals and plans and behaving in ways which are in your face self-destructive - as if one couldn’t care less about one’s wasted life and looming devastation or demise. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Is the covert BPD “typically” more toxic than the classic BPD or covert narcissism? Is the covert BPD in a shared fantasy of 1 or for 2? Does the covert BPD experience dual mothership? Is intermittent reinforcement the same as devalue and discard cycles? Is the covert BPD in a state of prolonged grief like the narcissist? When the covert BPD feels slighted, disappointed and hurt by interpersonal communication , circumstances or partner behavior – because the covert is a hybrid does it cause Narcissistic injury? When the covert BPD then goes into a fight/flight attack mode is that Narcissistic rage or symptom of classic BPD? Interpersonal communication was a huge platform for disagreement, arguments. If a person is chronically feeling slighted, disappointed, hurt and accusations/ paranoia of lying, withholding using this to justify for the verbal abuse. Is this the chronic victimhood of Covert Narcissism or these traits BPD. What specific behaviors in the covert BPD are under the category of psychopathy? Any research to show that some people with covert BPD might traits of both classic and covert elements? If yes, what elements are borrowed from each? Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Victims of narcissistic abuse? Two minutes to exonerate you from any guilt, purge you of any shame, and rinse you of any blame! Prof. Sam Vaknin odgovara na pitanje šta možete uraditi ukoliko ste u vezi sa narcisoidnom osobom. Ukoliko ste zainteresovani za knjigu prof.Sama Vaknina "Malignant Self-Love", kao i njegova predavanja i seminare u Srbiji možete poslati upit na mejl: marketing.bgonline@gmail.com Video editing: Zoran Jelenković/ VU Covers Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Women choose "beta" males on Tinder when they date or have casual sex, not "chads". They want to remain empowered singles. "Alpha" males on Tinder are Dark Triad personalities (narcissists and psychopaths), interested in hookups. People use dating apps almost exclusively for entertainment, to boost to self-esteem, and to find an intimate romantic partner. When it comes to real-life face-to-face dating or to finding sex, the apps are a total failure. SCHOLARLY REFERENCES 1. Sexual Medicine Reviews, Volume 8, Issue 3, July 2020, Pages 367-378 Sexological Aspects Related to Tinder Use: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature 2. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 155, 1 March 2020, 109739 Never mind I'll find someone like me – Assortative mating preferences on Tinder 3. The Dark Tetrad in Tinder: hook-up app for high psychopathy individuals, and a diverse utilitarian tool for Machiavellians? Minna Lyons, Ashleigh Messenger, Rebecca Perry & Gayle Brewer Current Psychology (2020) 4. Trond Viggo Grøntvedt at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and his colleagues surveyed 269 students in Norway 5. Study of 1038 Belgian Tinder users 6. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-people-dont-use-tinder-for-love-or-sex-heres-why-they-really-use-it-2017-03-23 7. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601909/how-tinder-feedback-loop-forces-men-and-women-into-extreme-strategies/ 8. Tinder: women get many more matches, but it's quantity, not quality By Jeanette Purvis 9. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601909/how-tinder-feedback-loop-forces-men-and-women-into-extreme-strategies/ 10. https://www.statista.com/statistics/975925/us-tinder-user-ratio-gender/ 11. http://www.netimperative.com/2019/04/05/online-dating-trends-men-outnumber-women-on-tinder-by-9-to-1-while-grinder-wins-for-age-diversity/ 12. https://lendedu.com/blog/tinder-match-millennials/ 13. https://onlineforlove.com/bumble-vs-tinder/ 14. https://simpletexting.com/dating-app-survey/ 15. https://www.moderndatingmyths.com/ 16. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a23653557/tinder-survey-says-millennials-like-being-single/ 17. https://www.globaldatinginsights.com/news/tinders-millennial-users-value-respect-loyalty-and-independence/ 18. https://www.tinderpressroom.com/about 19. https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.01952 20. https://amp.businessinsider.com/tinder-secret-success-rate-photos-right-swipe-percentage-2017-3 MEDIA ARTICLES Modern young women prefer LESS intelligent loser beta males for long-term relationships and increasingly also for casual sex. ALPHA MALES are losing out! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/evolution/9295131/Why-women-prefer-weaker-men.html https://nypost.com/2018/08/22/men-can-be-too-smart-to-date/ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjop.12342 https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_myth_of_the_alpha_male https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-myth-of-the-alpha-male-a7724971.html

In my line of work, I come across evil a lot. It is multifarious and cunning and often unidentifiable. You know you had been exposed to it when you shower compulsively after the encounter, to cleanse yourself. Evil is not only the psychopathic, sadistic, premeditated sort. Evil has numerous faces. Evil is in every power play, when winning is set above happiness and above life itself. Evil is in being weak, spineless, unboundaried and giving your body away promiscuously and your mind away obsequiously. Self-contempt, self-loathing, self-hatred, and dysregulation are all forms of evil: psychopathy in these cases is just a heartbeat away. She who despises and disrespects her body and mind is bound to abuse the bodies and minds of others. Indifference to the sufferings and needs of others is evil - as is suffering and neediness themselves. Flat affect, flat attachment, making excuses for or minimizing bad or self-destructive misconduct, and an unmitigated lack of self-awareness are the marks of this beast. The distractions that cause apathy and render calamities a mere form of entertainment is wicked. Valuing the inanimate and the material and the dead above the living is the epitome of malice. Egotism is evil reified. Evil rubs off on you, it is contagious. Cleanse yourself. Avoid it, no matter the temptation, regardless of the costs. Evil often masquerades as dazzling beauty or unfathomable wisdom - yet, it is their anathema. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

A series of earth-shattering social, economic, and technological trends converged to render their jobs loathsome to many - a tedious nuisance best avoided. Text here: http://samvak.tripod.com/workethic.html Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

People under age 35 are walking dead who live in a dystopian hell. No higher functions. No intellectual life. No interests or hobbies. No conversation (“flat speech”): dismissive one-liners with no depth or background. As dull as drying paint. Actions don’t matter, the heart matters, motivations matter: they are negative, you are negative, even if you act positively and you will be judged negatively. Change from inside, yourself – and your world will change. When action ends, you are still stuck with yourself. Action regulates moods and pleasure, nothing else. Working on yourself is good project if not tinged with anxiety or negative emotions like pain aversion avoidance envy wish to show off grandiosity or fear (improve, change, reach for goals, modify) not good driver. Outcome of catastrophizing and leads to negative territory. Out of love, pleasure good thing not with gun to your head (same action experienced differently owing to fear), no background, no resonance with anything positive inside, just with negative which causes trauma and rejection of life and reality (loner). Right things for wrong reasons healthy things for unhealthy reasons dissonance no happiness pleasure satisfaction don’t get you anywhere What wrong with me? Doing all right things everything everything I can all right things but is not getting me anywhere why what’s wrong probably wrong with me. Instead of doing right things focus on getting right motivations focus on feeling not on acting (action- not emotion- or cognition-oriented, it’s automatic, or following algorithms, commands, recipes like in religion or self-help). As long as you don’t change your motivation, your emotional landscape/background, no action will get you anywhere. The cart before the horse: emotions come first, actions second. Actions do not create reliable long-term emotions which create reliable, long-term actions and these actions enhance the emotions. Not what I need to do but what I need to feel, why am I doing this: feel love reach out to intimate partners, friends, family. Negativity can take you a long way (Hitler) but only so far up to a point and it always ends badly implode fall apart. Negative emotions not glue, but explosives not fear of hell but love of god. Negativity and constriction are choices blasphemy (rejecting god’s gifts given to be used and god himself) spitting in life’s face give up on world and positivity sacrilegious also inefficacious. Total rejection of life suicide biggest possible sin but suicide also mental Switch to positive emotionality to motivate actions to re-embrace life Religion god embraces life truth positivity love not death and isolation unbeing. Even monks reject all commitments except undivided commitment, attention, resources, energy to god – not life (marriage, family)! Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Some abusive relationships end in murder. How does love become death? From Stockholm Syndrome through Trauma Bonding to Tendency to Interpersonal Victimhood: a survey of current knowledge. Interview granted to Alla Sadovnyk of Ukrainian National Broadcasting Company The full documentary (Ukrainian): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JtWKB8PLOo More about abuse in intimate relationships: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/abuse.html http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/abusefamily.html

Islam, Narcissism, and Women are the future (Men are obsolete). Both history and the human reaction to it are constant: narcissism (delusional fantasy) as a defense against the disorientation of a rapidly shifting reality and one's own insignificance. The solution is radical acceptance. Oh, Men are doomed: the future is feminine. Convo with Karoline Gil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIu_jnLQHqo&feature=youtu.be NEW CHANNEL Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg79xJ1-pDFkg-aBe9KXLw Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism Playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vzBf9QvClo&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3RTSj7sW28ykk51HfHMNXQ Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

"Alpha males are not born, and they don't achieve their position based purely on size and temperament. The primate alpha male is a much more complex and responsible being than a bully. Merciless tyrants do sometimes rise to the top in a chimpanzee community, but the more typical alphas that I have known were quite the opposite. Males in this position are not necessarily the biggest, strongest, meanest ones around, since they often reach the top with the assistance of others. In fact, the smallest male may become alpha if he has the right supporters. Most alpha males protect the underdog, keep the peace, and reassure those who are distressed. Analyzing all instances in which one individual hugs another who has lost a fight, we found that although females generally console others more often than do males, there is one striking exception: the alpha male. This male acts as the healer-in-chief, comforting others in agony more than anyone else in the community. As soon as a fight erupts among its members, everyone turns to him to see how he is going to handle it. He is the final arbiter, intent on restoring harmony. He will impressively stand between screaming parties, with his arms raised, until things calm down." Mama's Last Hug by Frans de Waal, W.W. Norton & Company, 2019 Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Why do people seek partners - sexual and romantic - from "out groups" (other religions, races, ethnicities, and minority groups, not their own)? More about victimhood state of mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIfTn7x6tzk&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3B44ProV_XB05Cd2MjvWxX Sex drive is autoerotic. Object relations redirect it. When we are atomized, we regress to being autoerotic in a schizoid state. Generational gap in psychology studies Gender vertigo: women – especially VICTIMS of abuse – more psychopathic and narcissistic. Confuse assertiveness with aggression. Emulate psychopathic men. Bodies in public domain (sexting, cams, digital forever, not perceived as sex so digital promiscuity) 21% of all couples in the USA are sexless (fuck fewer than 10 times a year). The real figure is probably much higher. Among people under age 35, the situation is unmitigated disaster. 5 years without sex is very very common. Many go 10 years without sex A sizable proportion of the population gave up on sex - and relationships! – altogether. People gave up on all types of connection, not only sex. Gender Reversal example: men have started to withhold sex as an act of protesting , traditionally a 'feminine move. Men just talk with women. They flee at the first sign of assertive sexual advances. Men are terrified of sex because they perceive women as judgmental, aggressive, defiant, and psychopathic - or “insane” (dysregulated, labile) and bitter. And men are right: women have become a lot more antisocial and man-haters. The change in gender roles (women stronger, more independent) turned men off completely. The abyss between the genders is hopelessly unbridgeable, in my opinions. Misogynists like Muslims and Italians are reaping the rewards, ironically. Today, to find a willing sex partner is like winning the lottery. People lose it when they finally come across someone who actually likes to have sex: they cheat on their spouses, degrade themselves as subs, do anything, even in casual sex. Things have never been worse. Heterophily low, so the potential for conflict is high. Members of out groups like to mate with white women as a form of payback and a way of humiliating “white whores”. Hangover from colonialism (post-colonialism). Interracial porn and cuckoldry As far as male members of the out-groups, white women are whorish but status symbol, have arrived, belonging and acceptance. Exogamy rare (interracial couples) result extended or virtual singlehood. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Psychologists cannot agree on even the most basic things, psychology can never be a science. So, why bother? Presentation at the 38th Global Psychiatry and Mental Health Conference, February 2021

Self-sustaining self-sufficiency within firm personal boundaries is a sign of a stable sense of self-worth, maturity, resilience, and inner strength: the ability to spend time with yourself, productive and content is a gift. Self-sufficiency is intimately link to a sense of agency and personal autonomy (internal locus of control): a distinct, demarcated self; smooth, seamless, assured self-governance; and the capacity to act independently, based on free choice. These are the hallmarks of and the prerequisites to self-efficacy (Bandura): "how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations" and extract beneficial outcomes from one’s environment, human or physical. But self-sufficiency is often confused with insecure, fear-based, hurt-averse attachment styles: avoidance and withdrawal. Other mental health problems masquerade as self-sufficiency: the narcissist’s grandiosity, the psychopath’s defiance, the schizoid’s essential emptiness and solipsistic reclusiveness, and the borderline’s dysregulated emotions and mood lability. These are all forms of counterdependency, the exact opposite of self-sufficiency. Accustomed to “normal”, mentally healthy people, the intimate partners of narcissists and psychopaths keep probing, attempting with growing desperation and disbelief to pry open their inscrutable mates. Move on, folks, there’s nothing to see here. The psychopath and the narcissist are shimmering surfaces. They have no depth. Behind the alluring facade, there is only an empty, self-abandoned schizoid core. No ego and self can ever form without object relations (meaningful interpersonal interactions). Narcissists and psychopaths are goal-oriented two-state impersonal automate, gleaming metal swamped by primitive defenses and drowning in negative emotions. The harder one tries to get to the know the essential core of the narcissist and psychopath, the more ruinous the descent into the black hole that is their quiddity. They are entities made of all-consuming absence, a form of carbon-based antimatter. And you can’t wrap your head around this realization that your narcissist or psychopath, the man you love with all your heart just isn’t there, he is a mere apparition, a simulacrum and simulation, not human in any possible sense of the word. You are attached to an ever-receding mirage of an oasis, shape-shifting to mirror you ideally. Ultimately, this deep space emptiness infects and permeates you and you find yourself tumbling head over heels in the dark void of this absent soul, tethered to nothing but your impending doom. “How can I keep my cerebral narcissist sexually active throughout our relationship?” Answer: Approach-avoid all the time, keep him on his toes, guessing, anxious, expecting the next blow to fall. Intermittent reinforcement. Imminent abandonment. Hints at triangulation (but not actual misbehavior). He will remain hypersexed as long as you remain halfheartedly committed. Make sure you are never taken for granted and never fully and irrevocably there. Keep your suitcases packed at all times. “Is it true that cerebral narcissists do a lot of casual sex and cheat?” Cerebral narcissists are asexual, so they do not cheat. But even when they are in a somatic phase, they are sexually active only during the lovebombing stage of the shared fantasy. More generally: like all narcissists, cerebrals need to feel unique. Casual sex implies that the cerebral is just one of many, about to be discarded once the sex is over, and stripped of the locus of his superiority (his intellect), having been transformed into a mere sex object. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Failure of enlightenment project Malignant individualism (no religion, no institutions, no social networks, self-sufficiency, no objective benchmarks, disintermediation, no gatekeepers, no institutional memorytimelessness) Malignant egalitarianism/grandiosity (no role models, access to technology, destructive envy, Malignant tolerance (moral relativism, political correctness, truthiness) Malignant reasoning (ideas and concepts over people, interdisciplinarity and pseudosciences, technology not science, technology not civilization, information not knowledge or education) Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3 NEW CHANNEL Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg79xJ1-pDFkg-aBe9KXLw Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism Playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vzBf9QvClo&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3RTSj7sW28ykk51HfHMNXQ

More here: http://samvak.tripod.com/nm017.html Cryptocurrencies represent a major foundational revolution whose full implications are yet to be grasped. They challenge the paradigms underlying both the central banks’ money monopoly and public digital goods. Cryptoassets are digital goods, but they are scarce: they require “mining” and the total number of units in limited. Consequently, cryptoassets such as cryptocurrencies are rivlarous (there is a marginal cost associated with producing additional units) and excludable (access to and ownership of the cryptoasset is restricted). Blockchain technologies are to transactions what TCP/IP is to connections: they offer distributed, redundant, and autonomous self-updating, propagated, time-stamped, linked, irreversible, consensus-driven (polled), and smart (self-executing) electronic ledgers. Blockchain technologies present the first feasible solutions to counterfeiting, security policies, identity management, auditing, real-time transacting, mobile and micropayments, scarcity management, monetizing intangibles, crowdsourcing, record keeping, and a host of other hitherto intractable bottlenecks in business and finance. Blockchain technologies seamlessly interface across private, consortium, and public networks. The risks are as big as the promises and the rewards: from asset bubbles to money laundering, the financing of terrorism, cryptojacking, and threatening the foundations of the financial value chain. These threats are amplified by the recent introduction of exchange-traded bitcoin derivatives (options and futures), ETFs and mutual and hedge funds which invest in cryptoassets, and sovereign cryptocurrencies (e.g. in Russia, Sweden, Venezuela), thereby granting putative future access and price-setting privileges and power to financial institutions and commodifying the underlying assets. The technology used by first generation cryptoassets is slow because transactions are processed serially and with a block size of 1 Mb. Blockchains are far slower than relational databases. Emerging solutions such as sharding, layering, and BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) may compromise the safety of the blockchain and render it hackable. QBit (quantum computing) with a block size of 2 Mb may be the solution. These risks are also attendant upon new approaches to coinage such as minting (instead of mining) and proof of stake (instead of proof of work with a target value). Current software is also buggy. Ethereum, for example, lacks a decimal point (for self-executing scripts). Once blockchains become mainstream, centralized control is likely to render them more hackable. Regrettably, the technology is anarchically fragmented with not a hint of impending standardization. The main concern, though, is the fact that cryptocurrencies, though they do store value as investment vehicles, failed to become accepted means of exchange. In the absence of this crucial function, they are bound to wither and then vanish in a speculative boom and bust. One possible solution would be to link cryptoassets to crowdfunding as its main form of “money”. Cryptocurrencies are actually crowdsourced and the underlying blockchain technology would introduce rigorous fraud control beyond the current rather flimsy peer-review cum peer-pressure mechanisms in place in P2P financing.

These are chaotic confusing times and we are all baffled puzzled worried a trifle paranoid wary cautious self-isolating long before social distancing we all reach out and retreat approach avoidance because the world had become an enigma wrapped in a puzzle embedded in a mystery. We no longer feel at home. I will try to introduce order and meaning into the world as it is today by studying the way the world had always been, the immutable patterns rules that govern it now and always had, for millennia. For millennia, politicians had represented the interests of the elites: they managed the bureaucracies which were required to ensure the smooth running of polities and economies. Then, starting with the French Revolution, as empires and monarchies crumbled in slow motion from 1918 well into the 1960s, the masses started to assert their power as they formed chaotic ochlocracies and executed hapless members of the erstwhile aristocracies. Alarmed, the elites responded by introducing democracy and nation-states (nationalism): part sham and part an effort to structure surging mobs and control them. It backfired. The great unwashed leveraged democracy and disintermediating, empowering technologies to stage populist coups and take over the levers of states and establishments. All the philosophical systems and the religions of the world can be distilled into three options: 1. The psychotic school: magical thinking and misperceiving internal objects (such as “god”) as external; 2. The narcissistic school: entitlement, rights, obligations, and hubris, mistaking external objects and symbols (such as the “nation” or a love object) as internal; and 3. The schizoid school: withdrawing from the world and shunning reality altogether (“nothingness” and “authenticity”). At any given period of history, one of these schools is on the ascendant and the other two are on the defensive. In our postmodern world, narcissism carried the day. Transfer of wealth from poor to rich; suppression of free speech and human rights; emergence of IT-finance nexus The pandemic has merely accelerated the decline of the USA and the rise of the historically dominant Eurasian landmass (Russia and its newfound ally, contiguous China). Russia is providing weapons not only to Serbia, but to NATO allies like Turkey. It had cast itself as an important diplomatic force in the Middle East (not only in Syria, but even with Israel). It is now emerging as technological and scientific power both for good (vaccines) and bad (hacking). China is now pivoting from a strictly economic superpower to a military one. It is purchasing critical infrastructure in Greece, Africa, and Latin America. Its soft power has surpassed the USA’s in terms of lending to sovereigns, online social media; payments, and retail; and propaganda. Its GDP is nearly the same as the USA’s and the EU’s. Small countries cannot afford to surf the wrong geopolitical wave. they must strike a neutral stance between East and West, even if it means that they have to postpone geopolitical aspirations. Like the UK had done with Brexit, they should adopt the Swiss model and welcome everyone. They should redirect themselves and embrace industries which do not render the dependent on either superpower: services, green agriculture, medical tourism, offshore banking, coding and backoffice operations, etc. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3 NEW CHANNEL Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg79xJ1-pDFkg-aBe9KXLw Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism Playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vzBf9QvClo&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3RTSj7sW28ykk51HfHMNXQ

Boredom IS the Meaning of Authentic Life: direct contact with nothingness as a form of Being, as self-awareness (not to be confused with worthlessness). Problem of Western civilization: intolerance of boredom and of nothingness (example: death). Overstimulation=direct exposure to life --- leads to desensitization and ultimately to boredom via attunement. Defenses are "meanings" of a Bad Faith Life: 1. Unconscious 2. Fantasy (incl. religion) 3. Mastery (action) 4. Diversion (entertainment). We confuse these defenses with meaning but this leads to infinite regression nesting: meaning is dictated by others whose judgment is, in turn, determined by yet others ad infinitum. When defenses fail, we are bored which is the only healthy state because: 1. It generates action or fantasy 2. Left untouched, inert, it brings enlightenment We should seek boredom and aspire to it. NEW CHANNEL Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg79xJ1-pDFkg-aBe9KXLw Nothingness: Antidote to Narcissism Playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vzBf9QvClo&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3RTSj7sW28ykk51HfHMNXQ Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

The Narcissistic Credo I am a child tyrant emperor: infantile, petulant, moody, divine, and delusional. I am a Wunderkind: a boastful genius. I want just to play. Nothing else. To have fun. That's all (shared fantasy). I renounce reality and truth. My game is: you are my vastly inferior slaves and disciples. You must accept me as I am. You are expected to fully forgive and love me unconditionally, regardless of my conduct or misconduct, even when I inevitably hurt you badly time and again. I am immutable, opinionated, obstinate, grandiose, labile, dysregulated, and depressive. You should not try to change or fix me or to bargain with me: you are not my equals. You can play only with me, unless I let you play with others (when you are no longer my playmates, just my servants). I am entitled to take anything I want from you. I can do to you and with you anything I wish. You have no right to protest, decline, or resist my demands. You are my property, my chattel to dispose of and do with as I please. You must obey my wishes unthinkingly and promptly, never disagree with me, and even please me with your agony. You have no right to expect or demand anything from me. If I give you anything, it is because I choose to. I give only what I decide to give, usually only as little of my time, attention, knowledge, and money as absolutely necessary to keep you hooked and around as my playmates. Only I decide which game we play, based on how capriciously bored or thrilled I am at any given period. If you are not fit to play my game, I lose all interest in you. If you refuse to play my game exactly how and when I want it, or if you make any demands whatsoever, I walk away and look for a new playmate. Simple, really. And it works! I have had no reason to regret any of it over the decades of my life. Compared to the overwhelming vast majority of humanity, I am in a good place and have spent the time allotted to me on this Earth precisely as I had wanted to: my way. Buy most of my books in Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3 Courtesy of Dorcas https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC43t6gMm8otGN7OONLKRRxw

Where do we draw the line between normal and pathological? I. Believing in Religious Scriptures Literally Quantity of followers: cult, sect, or religion Religious people as junkies God Gene Hypothesis DSM's pusillanimous Political Correctness Delusional Disorder and DID possession Marx and Freud on Religion II. Conspiracism and the Psychology of Conspiracy Theorists Paranoid Personality Disorder Schizotypal Personality Disorder III. Defiance, contumaciousness Oppositional Defiant Disorder Antisocial Personality Disorder IV. Seductiveness Borderline Personality Disorder Histrionic Personality Disorder V. Being a Loner Schizoid Personality Disorder

Protect Yourself from Narcissism Virus as It Evades Your Immunity! Narcissism Epidemic (Twenge-Campbell) Naïve susceptible population Wildtype, mutants, variants (isolates), and strains: standard model Evading immunity by shapeshifting and cloaking via mimicry Genetic drift and antigenic shift Reinfection Community transmission Masking (education) Social Distancing Gather outdoors (boundaries, no secrecy) Hand washing Vaccination: deliberate exposure to specific traits and behaviors creates (1) antibodies (active measures) (2) memory cells but also (3) cells that attack infected cells (soul searching) Herd immunity, selective immunological pressure

Envy, uncertainty, and rage globalized will lead to social unrest. The pandemic spells the end of entrepreneurship, small to medium businesses, and self-employment and the rise of the gig temp contractor economy. It also catalyzes the shift from the real economy to the trading in expectations. World in Conflict and Transition http://samvak.tripod.com/guide.html http://www.youtube.com/vakninmusings

Nothingness is not about being a nobody and doing nothing. It is about choosing to be human, not a lobster. It is about putting firm boundaries between you and the world. It is about choosing happiness - not dominance. It is accomplishing from within, not from without. It is about not letting others regulate your emotions, moods, and thinking. It is about being an authentic YOU.