IF YOU DON’T HAVE A PARANOID PERSONALITY DISORDER, THEN YOU AREN’T SEEING THE WHOLE PICTURE

by Mr. Mean-Spirited

I’ll be honest with my readers – sometimes I get a little paranoid.  However, my mistrust always turns out for the best.

Although I diligently try to avoid other people, sometimes I have no choice but to venture into the city.   I can assure you that I always carry a weapon when I am around strangers - but no matter how well-armed I am in the metropolis, I keep glancing around me.   About a week ago, I first noticed a vehicle slowing as it approached me – I say “a vehicle” because any sort of corporate logo was removed from the sedan.  The automobile was not quite green, nor quite blue – but an indeterminate shade.  The passenger turned toward me and held up a cell phone as he passed.

I was not initially alarmed; I thought it was one of these odd things that often happen in a city.   A couple days later, I drove a couple hundred miles away to a somewhat smaller city.  What do you think I see?  The same sort of indistinctly-colored vehicle passing me on the opposite side of the street – with, this time, the driver pointing his cellphone at me.  What am I to make of all this?

There are evil forces menacing the individual, and this wickedness is always most apparent when you venture into an urban area.  This is not reality distortion – but a glimpse of genuine realism behind appearances.  No one else on the sidewalk was paying any attention to oddly-colored autos; paranoia allows a character to recognize patterns of surveillance that are not immediately apparent to the more conforming citizens.

Now, I would be the first to admit that there isn’t a damn thing special about me.  If any of my readers were ever to pay sufficient attention to their own societal environment, they might notice the same malign entities watching them.   You never see the world as clearly as when you are afraid.

Paranoia is a heightened awareness.  There is something wrong with a human being who is not suspicious of strangers.   Only a distrustful person is experiencing reality clearly.  If you do not take each social interaction “the wrong way,” then you will never understand what is truly going on.

A paranoid individual views the underlying motivations of other people as malevolent.  What if that perception of hidden maliciousness is a correct reading of the true nature of the world?  The totalitarian rulers of the world may well label the paranoid personality as “antisocial” – I would prefer to call the paranoid person as “accurate.”