Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

part what has made our species successful. Sometimes we really
need to set our personal pleasures, comforts, and desires aside and
do what is best for the group. Our children survive us and we need to
ensure that there is a social system still surviving so that they may
survive. And their children after them... In this fashion we help
assure the long-term existence of humanity.
Nevertheless, the psychopath has no way of placing the needs of
others above his or her own. What he wants is what matters to him.
This is a way out-of-control version of the selfish bastard that we all
know. This one is so far out of control, in fact, that not only is he
unable to even consider the wants or needs of others he does not
even see them as people. They are something else. He has othered
them. Whatever it is that he classifies himself as being, they are
different from that. They are not him, and as such they do not count.
Not one iota.
Along with this goes ideas about the general rules we all agree to
follow as a group for the common good. The psychopath has no
need for these things. If you can imagine, think of something you
wanted at some point in your life where literally nothing else
mattered. This is the mindset of the psychopath. They see what they
need or want, and nothing else is there, or at least nothing is there in
any degree that would matter. Is there anything that you want so
badly that you would do whatever it takes to get it; even if that
means that someone would have to die in the process?
For most people, the answer is a quick “no” followed by a qualifying
statement. “I could never do that, unless my kid’s life was on the
line.”
See how easy it is go from seeing the thought pattern as being
wrong, except when it affects you personally? This is a smaller

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version of the thought pattern that we are discussing here. Except,
where the psychopath is concerned, he does not need a significant
other or a child to quantify his statement. His is the more brutal “yes”
answer to the original question of Is there anything that you want so
badly that you would do whatever it takes to get it, even if that
means that someone would die in the process?
Customary beliefs are what help us, as a group, to distinguish right
from wrong. They help us to understand which actions will be in the
interest of all rather than ourselves alone. It is in this way that I have
to disagree with this precept.