A High-Functioning Sociopath

A High-Functioning Sociopath

Tonight Kim and I have been looking for something new and interesting to watch on TV. We started with an attempt to watch something on Apple TV which was not available on the menu of the Samsung Smart TV (I haven’t bothered to set up an Apple TV receiver since the Samsung generally has all the connectivity needed). In fact, I was able to go to the Internet icon and type in Apple TV and get to a login screen. After going through the pain of a remote control hunt and peck for the ID and password, I got in. Apple has made sure that it is never far away or difficult to find. It’s part and parcel of being one of the top four companies in the world (the others being Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet/Google). It is also logical given the Apple focus on content and not just hardware. That blend makes it a part of the Trillion Dollar Club that flirts with the market to have a market capitalization of thirteen digits. And lo and behold, Apple TV has just offered me a free trial subscription for a full year. Imagine that, a company that is so convinced of the quality of their content and is willing to play the long game in a world dominated by short-term thinkers. That, my friends, is exactly why Apple is a member of the Trillion Dollar Club.

Once into the Apple TV site and signed up for my free year of Apple TV, I found the show that had interested Kim in the first place. It took some doing since the link through the Samsung internet connection was a bit awkward. In fact, it proved so awkward that we couldn’t seem to get it to work. We could watch the trailer, but the episodes would not run for some reason. After several attempts we gave up, feeling a little unfulfilled. It was only a series that Kim had read about somewhere, but in this day and age we are used to getting what we want when we want it…at least in terms of media.

The next stop on the entertainment train was a documentary of sorts that we had heard about from some friends. It was a series of extreme sports professionals doing what they do to the extreme. It started with these 30 meter waves off the coast of Portugal and these surfers and their sidekicks who drive the jet-skis that both deliver them to the wave crests and retrieve them from the cauldron of wave foam. I have seen lots of surfing movies and clips and this was wild stuff. The size of those waves was nothing short of monstrous and it is clear that a mistake would likely cost either or both the surfer or the jet-skier their lives. That qualified as extreme and somewhat crazy in my book.

The next segment was extreme skiing. I was a skier for many years and a fairly decent one who watched lots and lots of Warren Miller ski videos of extreme skiing, so this was less shocking to me. Nonetheless, the peak at Chamonix, a place I have actually skied, was damn extreme and it took 46 days for the team to get a day with perfect conditions for the star to ski the peak, which was reached by a combination of helicopter and hiking. I found this less startling, but my familiarity with the sport made it interesting nonetheless. I found the extreme skier also a tad crazy, but not really with a death wish like the surfers.

Then there was a kite surfer competing off the coast of Ibiza where they say there is more wind than anywhere other than Gibraltar itself (the Venturi effect and all that). Kite surfing with all its acrobatics and air time certainly looks daring and physically demanding, but the waves were under two meters for the most part, so it didn’t really look Uber dangerous like the Portuguese of the French events we had just seen. The kid doing the kite sailing seemed to be quite intelligent and rational and said he knew it was taking its toll on his body (particularly the knees and shoulders). This was a daring sport that was unique and quite athletic, but I’m not sure it was extreme. Craziness was not the overriding sense one got about the participants.

The last segment I saw was one about trick mountain bicycle riding, the kind where the riders jump from one rock to another and show great, almost slow motion control of their bike, Clearly this takes great and diligent practice and skill (mostly body control I imagine), but I’m not sure it makes the threshold as an extreme sport. It certainly isn’t thrilling like the others. It was at that point that we turned the channel and saw that the documentary was only 40% over. Given the trajectory and declining extremity of the sports, I’m guessing they ended with a tiddlywinks tournament.

We then flipped through the Netflix offerings and found the Benedict Cumberbatch BBC series called Sherlock, which is a modern day updated version of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson helping Scotland Yard solve crimes with ambivalent homicide detectives. Cumberbatch does a great job portraying the arrogant Sherlock Holmes who does not suffer fools lightly. He outthinks everyone and seems always to be several steps ahead of all the other investigators and even Dr. Watson. He very easily makes enemies and has no friends. He cannot help himself from showing disdain for the mere mortals trying to keep pace with his superior intellect and deductive reasoning capabilities. One policeman in particular finds him more insufferable than others.

At one point when Sherlock Holmes makes a snide comment that shows his displeasure with the police, the offended officer refers to him as a psychopath. That causes Holmes to turn to him haughtily and sneer. He admonishes the officer to do his homework as he is not a psychopath, but rather a high-functioning sociopath. It is a great line that I want to remember the next time someone calls me a name I don’t like. It is educated and a complex, thought-provoking description that is at once accurate and condescending. The perfect retort.

I suspect that after another six months of social distancing and excessive searching for new and interesting online content to watch every day, high-functioning sociopaths may be in plentiful supply.