Is it all about the MIND?

People do things but I always wonder  more about the WHY than the what and how?  Don’t you? We always tend to think that the community we live in and the people we are surrounded by are good, happy and healthy ( most of you would have imagined the body health but I am talking about the MIND health! ). When we read or see some disturbing news of murder, rape, serial killing we always assume those things happened far away. Don’t we?

*Spolier Alert* there are going to be a few references and analogies from the psychological thriller series on Netflix, ” MINDHUNTER”. So please continue to read at your own discretion.

I remember reading a book on Charles Sobhraj in my high school ( probably our librarian never censored books seriously back in those days!) and discussed it in length with my best friend. It was definitely disturbing and I don’t remember much about the details of the book. But after that I usually avoided such books! I never imagined that a recent conversation with a good friend would make me curious to watch this series and bring back the memories of reading a book almost 20 years ago! ( Ok, now don’t start to calculate my age haha)

I binge watched two seasons of this series being a hypocrite mom. It was 3 days of no TV for my son during the daytime and it was 3 TV nighters for me!

This series is really fascinating than unsettling. It is about two FBI profilers and a criminal psychologist who revolutionized the study of psychopathic killers in the 1970s and 80s. “Profiling” – all of us do it everyday. A few of us have made  a career by being good at it, maybe not recruited as FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench but as recruiters and a few of us do profiling of a passerby, a neighbor, a co-passenger  in the metro etc etc as a hobby or subconsciously. I have come to understand that recruitment people and their ways determine the foundation for a company/institution of any kind to thrive. So a company’s foremost strategy should be to get an excellent recruitment. Do I believe in profiling? Yes, maybe MBTI or DISC are not 100% accurate but their indications might be really useful. Oh no no I am not implying that job seekers are criminals like these serial killers! haha

There is an intellectual sparring happening among so many thoughts in my head right now regarding this series, FBI agents, criminal psychologists, serial killers, behavioral and emotional trait analysis of these  psychopaths but I will stick to tell you two things. One, why I loved the series so much and second I will try to answer my own question in my head to why do they do what they do!

I loved every episode, every interview Holden and Tench have with Ed Kemper, Richard Speck, Brudos, Charles Manson, David Berkowitz,Monte Rissell etc. Brilliant direction, dialogues and acting on both the sides.The Atlanta mass murder kept me hooked to the season 2 but the ending of William Wayne gave me goosebumps! Until 2019, he has not been convicted of all the murders so is the real culprit still at large? Did the profiling fail at such a scale?  I might take a while to forget the faces of these murderers and rapists. The actors have portrayed them as real as it could be. I have almost researched on each one of them and their story, are they alive or dead, which prison are they serving now? Oh hold that thought in your head that is telling you that I am a psychopath trying to read and understand so much unnecessarily from a binge watched netflix series! Dr.Windy Carr is a strong female character whose knowledge is an immense value add to the whole behavioral research but it intrigues to see how she struggles to conceal about her homosexuality and her conversation with one of the killers who denies being homosexual yet has committed crimes because of that is nerve-racking. Holden’s panic attacks or Bill’s experience of things he sees at work being happening in his house. His 7 year old adopted and reserved son takes part in a murder unknowingly. Bill starts to think if his son’s traits are indications of a disturbed mind?

One of the oldest questions in criminology – and, for that matter, philosophy, law, theology – is whether criminals are born or made. Are serial killers a product of nature (genetics) or nurture (environmental factors)? I read the most suited answer to this question somewhere and I am reiterating in the exact words,

“Perhaps it’s not that serial killers are made, but that the majority of us are unmade, by good parenting and socialization. What remains behind is these un-fully-socialized beings with this capacity to attack and kill. And often that capacity is grafted onto a sexual impulse – aggression sexualized at puberty.Many serial killers are survivors of early childhood trauma of some kind – physical or sexual abuse, family dysfunction, emotionally distant or absent parents. Trauma is the single recurring theme in the biographies of most killers.”

Oh but Ted Bundy did not face any trauma?! So maybe we do not have enough research to conclude this presumption.

I would like to end this blog with a conversation I had with a very good friend :

Friend : ” Now you know why I love these serial killers, they are so damn smart. They are geniuses basically. ”

Me: ” They are definitely smart and I would have considered them as geniuses only if they had channeled their intelligence, self-pity/live and impulsivity in the right direction”

Friend : ” What matters not is the result, what matters is the journey. Result = murder and journey  = planning ”

Me : ” Well, planning and journey I agree. But it is not about the result at all. I call US humans for  mainly two things :

> FEEL ‘EMPATHY’ for others

> THINK ” PERCEIVE” the situations, relationships and surroundings

These smart beings failed miserably in these two”

Both of us then agreed to discuss this further during a sheesha kinda evening! 🙂

I am looking forward to the season 3 ( hope it doesn’t take another 2 years ) probably to see Ted Bundy and Charles Sobhraj!