Sublime

saying, “The main character is not a real person.” “But in the book, he’s a real person,” Derek had said. “Yes, insofar as he is not presented as a cat or a robot,” Mark said. “So, I am just saying, in the book, I think he has borderline personality disorder.” “This is not an interesting way to read the book.”

In this episode, Ryan is still not a Sociopath, so he cringes. Jan and David Wallace on the other hand, maintain an effortless poise no matter what Michael or Dwight get up to. To get there, they have to sequester empathy through detachment, and give up on happiness. We’ll see how and why that pact with the devil happens next chapter.

The informal leader of this whole crew, of course, was Sigmund Freud.

I still had this voice in my head, “I’m not really like them. I’m a degenerate.” And with my degenerate friends maybe I told myself, “Well, I don’t quite fit in here either, do I? I’m supposed to be reading.” Now looking back, clearly I was a part of all of it. I’m not this or I’m not that, that was the lie. But you don’t feel that at the time.

It is crucial here to differentiate between a fantasy that is directly destructive to another person because it is enacted—for example, incest—and a similar fantasy that may very well reflect the fantasizer’s psychopathology that is kept private.

All psychological suffering is hinged on this belief in being a ‘person’.

Hook 2: Monkey Mindedness