According to science, religion and psychology we humans are all connected. Many of us (empaths) know that to be true while many of us (sociopaths) can’t seem to grasp the fact. But like the knowledge of a round earth, believing in, or hiding from any indisputable fact is your personal choice.

Fact: Most of us are born and raised with the knowledge that we’re connected. How we practice that connection is accomplished through a natural human practice called projection. Those of us who are good people will choose to not hurt other people because we know what pain and betrayal feel like, so through projection, we conscientiously become unable to hurt or betray others. We “treat others how we want to be treated” because “we know how it feels when it’s done to us.” We cringe at the sight of another’s bloody wound because we project our own pain memories onto them and cringe because we believe we know what their pain feels like. We also celebrate the successes of others because we believe we know what their success feels like.

But in truth we can’t possibly know what another is feeling inside their own body, heart and head. However, we can believe we do by projecting our own experiences onto them, leaving us able to believe that we know exactly how the other person feels. This projection gives us empathy which then gives us physical connection to one another. And a feeling of physical connection with another human is the very definition of love.

Is it refreshing to be lawless?

But like with anything, projection also works against us. Being a good person is exhausting. Some of us really want to cut loose, break the rules and get away with it. WooHOO! Party! And this is why so many Americans worship toxic people. Projection. “I want to be like him or her so I admire them for being what I want to be or for taking what I wish I could take. I project what I believe it feels like to be them onto myself and I get a dopamine rush that I call refreshing.” Toxic people (sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists—anyone with anti-social personality disorders) blow up the rules with every chance they get. When a toxic monster that we admire takes something none of the rest of us can have, we celebrate with them because we project ourselves onto them so we can pretend we get to feel what they must be feeling with their ill-gotten reward. Toxic people don’t follow the rules of decency and aren’t, in the least, bothered by that. Oh my gosh, how fun would that be?

Bond. James Bond

James Bond steals cars and motorcycles and kills anyone who gets in his way. Rather than feeling remorse, he seduces a supermodel and downs a half dozen martinis, usually in a swanky multimillion-dollar hotel in some exotic city. Who wouldn’t want to live their lives free to be as dangerous and racist and rude as they want to be without ever feeling accountable? The good news for the slow-witted is: You can feel the freedom he or she feels by just allowing yourself to project his or her “success” into your own heart and pretend you are as happy as you believe he or she is. Call it refreshing if you wish. It’s a dopamine rush just like the rush any other toxic drug gives you.

But what does this say about you?

If you decide to pretend the toxic, lying, steeling, raping, abusive, bully monsters in your life are “strong leaders” really ask yourself why you want to be like them so badly. Why are you willing to close your eyes to what they really are? Monsters. Maybe you wish you could feel as free as they appear to feel. Maybe you’re so afraid of them that you’d rather be on their team than be their victim. Maybe you think you can share in their spoils, or inherit their cash when they die. Or maybe, deep down inside, you get excited that you could maybe do like them and take anything you want from anyone without the bother of an annoying sense of remorse afterward. 

What would you do if you woke up one morning to find everyone on earth was gone except you? If you answer “I’d find a Farrari and drive as fast as I want to” then you are experiencing a brief moment of the same release that others feel when they project themselves onto toxic people who live that way already.

Devil on one shoulder, angel on the other

There’s a toxic sociopathic devil inside all of us. But there’s also an angelic Christlike intelligence that knows we share this world with the rest of our species. What defines people as good or bad is how hard we each work to give ourselves over to the angelic voice rather than the devil. Our angelic voice teaches us to help the survival of the whole species by loving and sharing and helping each other. Most of us have embraced that voice as we allow the ugly selfishness of our primal instinct to shrink away. Friends, we are each evolving at different speeds from being the nasty sociopathic cave-animals we once were to becoming the cooperative celestial beings who will soon be traveling the universe in the vessels that we’re creating in teams and launching into space right now.

Toxic people are toxic. Not happy

They act happy. They puff their chests with self-pride and haughty arrogance. They tip their noses up at us from their yachts and Porches but make no mistake, they are filled with toxic anger and poisonous hatred. It’s what drives them to be so prideful. They know they cannot have love the way a compassionate person does and that enrages them. It’s often why they choose to hurt you for no apparent reason. Jealousy. Human beings are created to be social creatures. The cruelest torture known to man is solitary confinement. How have toxic people not created their own version of solitary confinement by buying friends with gifts and favors? They surround themselves with untrustworthy friends who will turn on them the second the well of free gifts runs dry. When toxic people laugh at you it’s not out of joy, it’s out of jealousy and hatred. It’s all they know.

Hell is not reserved for bully victims

Heaven is not a reward and Hell is not a punishment. They are the dream or the nightmare you’ve chosen to set yourself up for when you leave your body but keep your soul. Hell isolates the isolators; Heaven connects the connectors. If you have any spiritual beliefs of any kind, then think about this: If we create a life of selfless love and connection with others, then we’ll eventually leave the earth riding the wave with the momentum of that selfless love and connection. But if we pave our road with selfish anger and hateful opinions, or with the screaming voices of FOX news, CNN and the distrusting BS of conspiracy websites, and if we shun the good people and praise the sociopaths who we admire for behaving like rude and selfish 3-year-olds, then that’s the nightmare we will pass into after we leave this world. It’s the Heaven or Hell of our own making. Heaven is a place for love and connection, and it’s reserved for people who’ve given themselves over to love and connection. Hell isn’t reserved for bully victims, my friends, hell is crowded with the bullies themselves. Sure, these toxic “winners” win their daily selfish battles and get the snacks and the sex and the cash that they want on any given day, but in fact, by isolating themselves and refusing to project love and connection, they lose the whole war. There won’t be any money, sex or Porches in the next life, so whatever they’ve built or stolen stays here and they are left with what they created inside their hearts; Anger, revenge, selfishnes, isolation. They slide into the afterlife on the wave and momentum of the loneliness they supported and taught. Hell may be crowded with these monsters, but it’s a lonely place where each resident burns in the lonely lives they’ve built for themselves by choosing to not connect with the thousands of people they came in contact with when they had the chance. They got what they wanted and now they don’t have to share it with anyone because, by their own design, there’s no one to share anything with at that point in their miserable nightmares. Don’t admire these people. Don’t try to emulate them. They’re to be pitied.