In his place, I wouldn’t be thinking “My mysterious dark side is good at X,” I’d be thinking “I’m good at X when I put myself into the right frame of mind.”
Sometimes I’m all simplistic and think to myself “I’m good at X when I get pissed off.” Combined with a little emotional regulation with respect to pissed-off levels it amounts to much the same thing.
Especially if the ‘frame of mind’ has lots of other stuff going on as well: the implication is that he can’t get the competence without the rest of the baggage. So it’s like ‘slightly drunk me is good at pool (but it also wants to drink more and thus become very bad at pool), rather than ‘thoughtful me is good at understanding where other people are coming from’.
Sometimes I’m all simplistic and think to myself “I’m good at X when I get pissed off.” Combined with a little emotional regulation with respect to pissed-off levels it amounts to much the same thing.
Especially if the ‘frame of mind’ has lots of other stuff going on as well: the implication is that he can’t get the competence without the rest of the baggage. So it’s like ‘slightly drunk me is good at pool (but it also wants to drink more and thus become very bad at pool), rather than ‘thoughtful me is good at understanding where other people are coming from’.