Who do you know?

Who do you know who can be described with the following ideas: "glibness and superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, pathological lying, proneness to boredom and emotional vacuity." When M presented this same question to me, I could think of three off the top of my head.

In an article in The New York Times on February 8 entitled "For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be 'Evil'," readers learn that the excerpt I just gave you identifies people who are most likely to commit violent crimes. I got three right off the bat! That's slightly terrifying. How many did you come up with?

Of course, another coworker noted that left-handedness is indicative of a criminal nature so that means that a lot of us are prone to being naturally evil. Then he contradicted himself and said, "perhaps it's right-handedness, I can't remember." So, really, I guess the point is that any of us are prone to violent behavior. And, now the blog comes full circle to the saturation I experience with my job, as William Golding suggests, humans are naturally evil unless checked by society.

Let's tie this in with the story that E alluded to in his post. Today, after a horribly draining school day, I come home to eat a brownie in a desperate attempt to drown my sorrows and cynicism. I saw the blinking red light on the answering machine and got excited that someone called to talk to me. Not so lucky...the message was from the security department at my credit card company. Someone in Illinois decided to go on a shopping spree with my credit card. If I had to take a guess, I would bet that this person was left-handed, but maybe he/she was right-handed, and I would guess that this person possessed some superficial charm and probably used my credit card because he/she was experiencing a particularly boring day. But, then again, that could really be anyone...or no one, I can't remember.

Can you tell I've had a rough day?