Detachment

Detachment plays a strange part in relation to the Western psyche. Perhaps this is because it is simply the most unexpected phenomenon in a realm of otherwise unmitigated socially conditioned egotism.

I suspect that when we are egotistically engaged in a social realm of competing egos, we become much more intelligible to those who are also conditioned to respond to others on the basis of their own egotism. Paradoxically, by being egotistic, we also thereby become easier to "read" and thus appear safer to those who operate in the world in mode of egoistic battle against other egos.

The point that we become detached -- the point where we have least interest in using the "other" as a means towards our own ends -- is, nonetheless, the point at which the egoistic mind considers us to be most dangerous. It is as if we had deliberately changed our radio frequency in order to be uncontactable, no doubt so that we can pursue some sort of evil designs.

What happens when we lost interest in him is that he can no longer "read" us according to the psychology that has become typical and conventional. So far as he is concerned, his radar signals have become muffled. Consequently, he feels threatened. The lack of egoistic interest in his affairs does not appear as what it is, but rather appears as a souped up kind of egotism.

I have had people accuse me of all sorts of extremely nefarious intentions when I have in fact been in a state of almost absolute detachment from the rest of the world.