When you encounter another person, particularly a stranger, do you see just an object? Something to fear? Something to be used? Something standing in your way? Something complicating your path?
Or can you “let” them be a person with hopes and dreams and aspirations; with goodness in them? For those who choose to believe, someone “made in God’s image”?
This is not the same as isolating dismissiveness — something that’s really “trending” right now. It’s an ability to connect and care, should the same “energy” be in them. The problem with isolating dismissiveness, is that one stops looking for this energy coming from others.
But when it connects, both are enriched far beyond what they “expended” and a reverse trend starts to build. That reverse trend, is what will make a nation great again.
© 2026 – SoulSequel
22 responses to “Do you “see” people; or just objects?”
I see people, but that doesn’t mean there are times that they aren’t useful to me, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t take advantage of them if they’re willing participants in the usage.
There’s people who walk through life forever using others just as objects.
I have similar experience to yours; including times when their participation hasn’t been willing. It’s part of who we are. I had a parent who played wicked psychological games on me/with me and as a counter, I became even better at it than them. It used to kick in rather quickly and instinctually but is much more under my control these days.
But so long as we can still take a few steps back from the process and see/honor others as something far more precious than just objects, we are on a good path.
“I see people, but that doesn’t mean there are times that they aren’t useful to me, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t take advantage of them if they’re willing participants in the usage.”
FYI, I was wondering if maybe you were psychopathic not because I saw you as being evil, but because you had some certain affect. Psychopaths and AS folks can share some affect, albeit AS simply tends to be blunt.
I definitely am not far from AS range, though extremely metaphoric and on the opposite scale there. However, I am often blunt and cut things down to the core realities, whereas the world often throws a bunch of pretentious bullshit and swarmy words on everything.
(Generally, and usually charming, however, when not throwing out blunt and challenging things, another difference.)
I do think you often mean to be metaphoric, but things come off different. For instance, you talked about not exercising unless you are paid to do so. One could say everyone is SOMEHOW paid in SOMETHING to do ANYTHING. So, while you may have thought of “literal money” there, you may have and probably did mean, on a deeper level, any sort of pay.
When I hard core worked out, it was to get more social manueverability, as before I was terribly skinny. Also more defensive and offensive capabilities. Ultimately, it was and is, something that pains in some fun.
If someone “has an effect” on us, how much of that is on them and how much of it is on us? Provided we are practitioners of self-control as Scripture entreats us to be.
I trended towards AS for a long time. But that changed in the Spirit. God “so loved the world . . . “. (Not what they were, but what they had the potential to become). So how can I not?
“How things come off” can be a dicey thing. It can just as easily be “how it is taken” as “how it is offered”. We have little control over how it is offered by others; but every control over how we take it. And if what we say is continually not taken by many as we intended in offering it, exercise in self-control once again presents itself.
But the world leans more towards trying to control others than working on controlling the self.
I’m drawing a blank on when I talked about not exercising unless I am paid to do so.
“If someone “has an effect” on us, how much of that is on them and how much of it is on us? Provided we are practitioners of self-control as Scripture entreats us to be.”
I said “affect”, in context, a certain communication disposition which was observed….
I believe that people can be healed, of anything, and will be, but it can be important to note that AS is not well understood and may not be a negative or an ailment. I do not believe it is anything but natively born that way. I am not aware of anyone being “healed” of AS, though have not researched it a lot.
There are some conditions which are caused by brain damage. Psychopathy certainly can be. The Austin shooter had a brain tumor and believed he had one. Not that he was psychopathic. A number with psychopathy and many other neurological disorders have had a brain injury, others are born that way.
I am not sure if AS is a disorder in the same way. Like “psychopathy”, albeit here on a very different scale, both can be benign. For instance, many police, doctors, politicians, and such score high on the test. Often what excerbates that condition is a bad childhood.
Again, not sure about AS, though I have seen it provides talents in some situations. One friend from HS I learned decades later had it. I had no idea. There are a number of those who have excelled in computer security who have AS.
It’s perhaps like any other “condition” — whether congenital or “acquired”.
Our species had risen to where we are today, by “social endeavor”. Even the lone wolf geniuses who worked mostly in isolation at some point needed the backing of society. So things that work against this can broadly be said to be counter-productive; perhaps even “bad”.
That is why we call them “conditions”. I both know and suspect that I “qualify” for several “conditions”. So I have some basis of experience to assert that to use a condition as either one’s vanguard OR excuse . . . is to make oneself simply a function of that condition.
As opposed to that condition simply being a function of us. Do we have “the condition” . . . or does it “have” us?
I don’t see them as objects, but i do feel worthy of higher love, from myself as well as from others. I feel like we all have a theme in our lives and we display patterns. Unless and until we figure out what that theme is, we will continue to seek out things that hurt us, things that are part of our theme. Often times, its not good for us, and prevents us from providing and receiving higher love. If we are in relationship with someone and we come to realize that is hurting us, i think its okay to peacefully walk away from that if we have finally learned. How many times do we need to learn the same lesson?
In the context growth, all “failure” hurts: whether a failing grade, losing a key match, failing to succeed at a hobby or venture.
But we don’t learn from “wins” so much as from “losses”. Hurt is the means by which we learn: so rather than anguish the hurt we simply need to have better healing/growing/learning processes!
Lessons that we have to keep repeating? As an inherently stubborn and willful person, I’ve had my share of these — and likely will continue to! And often the frustration at having to repeat the same lesson over, becomes the onus to finally learn it right!
And perhaps through this, I’m being led on a journey of becoming less stubborn and willful when there’s something vital to be learned?
It’s all “loving process” and “proper time”.
I am pretty strongly persuaded currently that only a very few sorts of people genuinely see others as objects to be used. Specifically, “psychopaths”, or those with “anti-social personality disorder”, the official term, though “psychopath” is used in many of the research studies and so actually quite “official”.
That is currently estimated to be about 1 out of 150 people. Though some scale higher and some lower on the range. Further, it has been discovered that even (some? all?) psychopaths can “turn on” and “turn off” “empathy” parts of their brain. It certainly can be, then, that “everyone else” can turn on and off empathy parts of their brain.
While relatively new, just about thirty years, twenty for a lot, though psychopathy research is not so new… and several of these studies and conclusions could be overturned later, there is a lot of good data and logic backing them.
Noting, especially, modern “science” has very, very limited view of the landscape of the internal person.
These folks who are psychopath, especially those who score extremely high in the range, literally have a brain disfunction, and illness. In general, I believe that the best Christ like approach to error is viewing it as an illness or wound.
This approach is very different then the dismissiveness you see so often in today’s burgeoning and infantile connected world (internet).
It is extremely different from the viewpoint you see in mainstream religions, and other mainstream groups which are strongly socially cohesive, including the atheist group.
Difference, I have found, can well be summed up by the doctor metaphor Jesus used, and being specific on that: when someone has a horrible wound or illness, non-doctors go “eww”. But doctors and nurses approach it objectively, without emotional negativity.
I do believe and use, however, a wide range of language for expression, and find negativity has its’ place in motivation.
I also believe people rely on it often because it does. However, the problem is that it has really good results in some situations, and terrible results in other situations.
While our behavior tends to be automatic, and not thought out, when you do think about communication strategies, it provides more accurate communication strategies. Though it also becomes relatively automatic, just as a tennis player or whatever has muscle memory.
One problem with that can be, being dismissive or negative, without really stopping to try and sense the deeper issues. However, I find such stopping comes from experience, training. So, the more you have, the more you are sensitive to inner pulls and tugs and pushes.
If you are wondering, no, I am not at all psychopathic. As I see you had just written a lot of responses to me.
Pretty well aware of my general tendency on flaws.
I generally am extremely empathic, though as I have a very spiritual view on a number of matters, I do not often share the same sentiments as others. Also, I am wary of getting tied up in bad empathy, very easy for others to abuse that.
A former supervisor had all this worked out as a model he liked to vaunt, calling some “sociopaths”, (a less used term for “psychopaths”), and some “empaths”. His own term, which is relatively good. He certainly had some excellent observations. Yes, another angel, and his “cover” or persona was as a guy guy who is quirky, and at times, seemingly intentionally difficult to deal with.
Albeit, at times, the most spiritual people can be very difficult to deal with. Most of the time, they are the easiest to deal with.
Usually I approach people with extreme curiosity, and generally “get off” on making them feel good.
In some areas of life, “using” others, of course, can be *mainstream*. Sexuality, for instance, has a lot of often physically instinctive drives. Likewise, other strictly instinctive drives.
Psychopaths, like the death-row inmates @ladybarbara mentioned, present the “blatant” exercise of this that is most noticeable.
I suggest that we all do it to some degree — but that we are strongly driven to deny it.
“Psychopaths, like the death-row inmates @ladybarbara mentioned, present the “blatant” exercise of this that is most noticeable.
I suggest that we all do it to some degree — but that we are strongly driven to deny it.”
The term psychologists are using is terrible despite having performed a lot of work in the area. The very vast number of “psychopaths” are not criminals. On the other hand, an extremely high percentage of death row inmates are psychopaths, and a higher then average number of inmates.
Whatever the case, that is 1 out of 150 people, it is plausibly estimated today. Which is certainly a high percentage of the ordinary population.
No, I do not believe I “use” people in such ways, and certainly do not view people as “tools to be used”.
If you are attempting to insinuate I do, I can only ask for evidence and *reasoning* based on your observation. I do not believe in making inaccurate observations on people, and certainly, especially, not critical ones. While it certainly can be helpful to provide meaningful critical advice, doing so without doing the legwork I find abhorrent. Doing so without offering evidence, or allowing for responses, especially when you jump to assumptions, as I have seen you do quite a bit I do not regard well. It certainly is very not Jesus like, and goes against the core of the Jesus message.
No such approach would stand even in this corrupt justice system in the US, there certainly is no reason for Christians to have a much, much lower bar.
I also do *not* view seeing people as “tools” to be selfishly used as mainstream.
“Mainstream” is a code word I use for the ‘wide road that many take which leads to destruction’. There are plenty of mainstream errors that are very common.
You may be confusing cooperative relationships where one person does one thing, and another does another thing as “using”, I do not know.
I would certainly like to hear strongly reasoned arguments with strong evidence presented as to why you believe this sort of behavior is so mainstream, as well. That accusation you are making is clear. But, your reasoning for it, despite the significance of such an accusation, especially as it is so wide reaching is entirely not presented. Yet.
I do not have much confidence you will do so, as you often do not do this.
In my day job, part of it is criticism. I find vulnerabilities for a living. In software, not people. If I am wrong in any “criticism” I make there, I look like a fool. And rightly so.
If you do not see Jesus as teaching that we should take judging others seriously in our heart, then I do not know what you are working off of.
The entire life of Jesus and especially in his trials and tribulations, is all about people judging him wrongly. Which he also heavily preached.
I talk about the processes, common to us all, that both help and hinder good progress. (Or taken spiritually, that lead as natural consequence to wage of either Life or death).
Peace. I’m not insinuating anything. But if what someone shares triggers negative response in me I take it as an invite to explore not what might be wrong in them, but what might be wrong in me. I see this as at the very heart of Spiritual growth.
We all have the seeds of psychopathy in us — with “criminality” simply being a more-or-less arbitrary presenting degree of it. We all have it, because all sin is “pathology of the spirit/soul, which the world mainly sees as just “psyche”.
So there is no insinuation or “accusation” here beyond what is already present in God’s word.
Others (all others) are there for us to participate with. And this involves a degree of “back and forth” cooperation where both parties ideally should benefit.
And to use a gothic analogy, “vampiring” another (gaining at their loss and turning them into a shadow of the predator that preyed upon them) . . . benefits only one.
It is “using” another as an object for one’s own greater glory.
I hate people. I love people.
I hate people. I love people.
I hate people. I love people.
I hate people. I love people.
Sinusoidal Curse
Sadly, I must admit, having worked in a prison environment for 12 years, I tend to profile people. Hazard of that occupation…
I see people for what and who they are. Simple observation eventually reveals their character by their actions, words, and mannerisms. Yeah, I profile people, but it has served me well in the past and probably will well into the future.
The only people that I have met and interviewed that spoke of other people as “things”, or referred to another person as “it” ( when speaking of their victim) were serial killers on San Quentin State Prison’s Death Row.
I see other people as each unique and noble. Each is a person who is shaped by their past. Each tries their best to do what they each see is right to do. Each wants to grow and prosper. Each parent wants what is best for their offspring. I try to see their attributes.
I never have the thought of —- what would knowing this person do for me.
I have weighed one customer against another in my past house cleaning business. A black man wanted to hire me as his maid and an old client said that if I worked for the black man, then don’t come back and work for her. In that case, I would rather work for the person who is not prejudice. As it turned out, the client I dropped was paying me only $15.00 an hour for 4 hours a week. The new client set my pay at $35.00 an hour and expected me to give him unlimited hours — resulting in my almost living at his house and running my business from his house, putting in hundreds of hours per week. I even had my own bedroom at his house.
People are just people. Each is unique. I take people at face value. They are to me what they want to be to me.
Death row serial killers present the extreme — so it is obvious.
I know for a fact that I have not fully respected a person’s “personhood” in the past — even without outward expression of calling them “it” or literally seeing them as expendible. I simply saw them as something to use for my advancement — financial, emotional, psychological, regardless of cost to them. A certain amount of “survival of the fittest” (or of our progeny) at all cost, is built into us.
And there’s perhaps less shame in recognizing this, than in not. We all are on individual variants of the same journey, to evolve and become something better.
Provided we’ve not become bogged down in the quicksand traps or sucking whirlpools along the way!
I’ve found that when I’m operating on good spiritual power from God, my perspective of others “evolves”. And when I get stressed or neglect my spiritual exercise, I devolve back into a place where it’s easier to see people as just objects and obstacles to be used/avoided.
And I am not “traumatized” by the fact that I probably will lapse into devolved perspective again when spiritual energy wanes. I know how to heal self, and help others learn how to heal themselves . . . and I go longer and longer in more evolved process; and seem to get into devolved process less and less!
So I’m progressing!
In traffic, I tend to talk to the cars around me and ahead of me, instead of thinking of each as being operated by a person. So, I guess I do do that.
And I tend to as well. Worse, I see “makes of cars”; with some showing a decided proclivity to wreak roadway havok (vehicular profiling??).
But on good days of high spiritual energy I try to “see the person” and not just the object.
And as I ponder this, I’m also thinking of possible link to a slightly different process of loving a person even if we don’t love the choices they are making in this moment.
That will probably take a few thousand km’s to turn that into a coherent topic!
I even look at the plate letters and make up names using the letters. Just on-the-road distraction and entertainment.
I’m not sure I understand the difference. I come from the school of thought that EVERYthing is relative.
How I choose to relate to an object, like a plant, or a chair, dictates what that relationship can be. When I choose to let a person influence, I am subjected to my reaction to their stimuli. A beautiful flower will do exactly the same thing.
My training is such that I will always allow a person to “be” whatever they are, so I can then respond in a way they understand. What is the point in communicating if they can’t understand you?
Help me understand how you see the difference between people and objects. I’m not sure I understand based on the details you provided with the question itself.
I have to admit that I see some people on here as products of their environment. I see myself the same way. Is that product an object, as well as a person?
Are a group of people a thing? Is the thing that they become sentient, or a blob of bullshit? and if they are a blob; is what makes up the blob any less than a component of that bullshit?
Is a person who sees people first, just an object relating to another object?
When a person uses questions to respond to a question; are they going beyond being an object relating to an object and trying to create a dynamic by transferring energy through the stimulation of further thought that blends somewhere in the middle? I don’t think objects can do that??
It may be a simple as letting a person be what they feel they need to be at that moment . . . vs. what we need them to be at that moment.
Are we participating with them or just all over them!?
Objects we master. People we participate with. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be!
Well, “mob” does rhyme with “blob”! And the mob mentality does tend to rob everyone involved of their personhood turning them just into blobs of emotions out to “service self” at all costs. All of society becomes just an object to be used to that end. It’s actually rather vile
It is why modern protests have become so troglodyte ( knuckle-dragging) over the well-organized “demonstrations” of old that sought interaction and education while preserving respect for others.
It can get confusing if we let it: because we so easily personify objects and objectify people. My question is more about recognizing when we are doing these things . . . And perhaps opt for a more enlightened participation over a more selfish “using” (or “using up”) of others.
Clarification noted.