This is a topic I have brushed up against a few times before. But for whatever reason, I have been thinking more supervillain-like thoughts lately(I dunno, maybe my reptile brain is waking up, or I am just feeling my oats after finishing a semester), so I thought I would try to work it out by writing

The main thing is that I have a diabolical mind.

Part of that is intelligence, of course. It’s not easy to be diabolical if you’re stupid^[1]. But intelligence alone does not give one a diabolical mind. There are plenty of very bright people in the world who go through life with minds as simple and honest as a fresh dug beet.

No, to have a truly diabolical mind, a supervillain mind, it takes a potent combination of intelligence, psychological harm, rage, and cowardice.

The psychological damage is crucial because only a broken mind becomes a twisted mind. Some bit of psychological harm has to be there in order to prevent the normal, healthy, productive expression of emotion that leads to a well balanced psyche with no deep, obsessive needs.

The rage may well come from this. The truth is that for people with a broken mind, everyday life is full of pain. This alone, regardless of life events, can lead to a deep seated rage against a world that seems intent on making you suffer.

But why doesn’t the diabolical person deal with this rage openly? Because of the cowardice. Winners don’t have diabolical minds. They don’t need them. Their lives are simple straight roads.

But for the omega of the pack, life is not so simple. To them, conflict equals loss. They are too scared to fight anyone head to head. That’s why they come up with plans.

Plans (schemes, whatever) allow the tension between rage and cowardice to be resolved. A well executed plan circumvents the need for conflict at all. The fight is over before the object of your wrath even knows it began. Cowardice funnels the rage through the intelligence, and what comes out are schemes.

And it is this need to find indirect solutions that makes a mind diabolical. The rage is the driving force, pushing the mind into weird little nooks and crannies. It propels the mind into places other minds wouldn’t go. It makes you devious.

And deviousness is the primary attribute of a diabolical mind. It is the difference between youth and vigor, and old age and treachery. It is deviousness that solves the conflict between rage and cowardice. The diabolical person soothes their wounded pride when someone humiliates them by telling itself that it will get even with them… someday.

And then, the planning begins.

These plans only rise to the level of being truly diabolical, though, when they demonstrate a level of intelligence and anticipation that the average person would find downright terrifying. As I have said before, intelligence is the most frightening advantage that one person can have over another.

Therefore, the truly diabolical (and hence most frightening) plans are the ones that demonstrate that, to the diabolical person, normal people’s actions are as simple and predictable as the chiming of a clock.

It scares people because it’s not only a demonstration of a kind of power they can’t attain or even understand, it also their sense of their own free will.

There’s more things that go into the diabolical mind. Careful observation of how things work is one necessary ingredient. Another is a certain brand of hardcore pragmatism. A third is a willingness to think any thought and go anyplace, however dark, in order to find solutions.

I, myself, am possessed of such a mind. I have a diabolical mind, but I am not a diabolical person. Usually, it doesn’t go any further than the plan with me. I deal with whatever happens by making the plan and amusing myself with it, then filing it away in my mind where I will never look at it again.

And even that doesn’t happen very often. I think that is because my travails of life have been a matter of absences, not battles lost. I have had very little interpersonal conflict in my life. Sure, I was bullied, and for a time I really hated my bullies.

But now I don’t care. Revenge against them would be ludicrous and pathetic. We were children. None of us knew what the hell we were doing or why.

So while I am completely capable of conceiving and refining a plan so devious and cunning it would have the appearance of magic, I honestly don’t have the desire to do it.

In fact, that is a path I strenuously avoid. I have come face to face with that potential version of me many times in my life, and every single time I have rejected it. I don’t want to go that way. That road can only need to malice, hate, and insanity.

And here I am again, looking it in the face. It is not without its appeal. In the short term, it addresses feelings of powerlessness and failure by replacing them with a feeling of power and superiority. They think they are better than me, but it is I who are better than them!

But even that seems sad and petty to me. That’s not the path to healing. That’s the road to Hell.

Even so, I can see why people don’t know how to deal with me, beside my severe lack of socialization. On one level I give out the power signal of my intelligence. On the other hand, I am a gentle and friendly soul who doesn’t bear ill will towards people and therefore gives off submissive/receptive signals on another level. Plus, of course, I am very large, and that’s another alpha-like signal. But I’m harmless.

It’s like being a very polite and gentle tiger. Sure, in time, people might learn you are as harmless as a kitten. But at first, they are going to be very confused.

Nothing I can do about that, I suppose.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.