Narcissist
Narcissism is a personality disorder that is most easily defined by the subject’s extensive interest in only the self. Now, the interesting thing about narcissism is not how it affects the subject, but the victims. Anyone who’s been around a bonafide narcissist can tell you how destructive and difficult they can be to deal with, live with, and in general get away from. Narcissism is an extremely potent condition that puts blinders on the subject, preventing them from seeing anything but their own concerns. It’s not difficult to figure out what fuels a narcissist, it’s just a matter of attributing their behavior to long term interests or short term whims. A narcissist will only offer assistance or concern for someone when it benefits them. A true narcissist is easier to find than you realize, because it seems like we’ve become a culture of narcissists.
In the Greek legend, Narcissus was a figure who obsessed over his own image to the point he fell into a pond in efforts to embrace his own reflection. How stupid that may seem to us, a man could love himself so much that he kills himself in his pursuit of self-love. However, when spelled out like that, maybe we realize it isn’t so far-fetched at all. From that story we get the concept behind the term, and more importantly we get a deeper understanding of what we’re dealing with. In this “about me” world, many of us are constantly at odds with people in a hurry and single-minded determination to see the world as though they are the only ones living it. When reading novels, you’ll quickly come to realize whether or not the story is a first or third person narrative. A third person narrative tells the story from an known or unknown point of view, it doesn’t focus so much on a single character’s perspective, but from a mostly omniscient point of view. A first person narrative sees the story through one set of eyes, and often it is colored in the interests of the main character, distorting the truth as they see it, leaving the reader to discern fact from fancy.
It seems like the truth ends where feelings begin, while organizations, science, and groups of people push to sugarcoat unpleasant truths that coincide with their political correctness or activist crusade. It’s hard to hear unpleasant truths about the world, but we should be careful when we reject things we disagree with, because if we blind ourselves to too much of the world, it blinds itself to you. One of the most crucial factors in understanding the world is making the effort to understand each other. With a generation so caught up in fishing for likes on their own social media posts, many of us forget to consider the posts of others. We celebrate our circles and run to share our accomplishments, but we don’t stop to consider the side-effects of how self-consumed our actions are. Where is the love for others, the concern for family and friends? If we continually feed our egos, they’ll bloat, and we won’t even be able to see our feet, much less the works of those we tread on. One of the most important things to accept is that everything we do has a consequence, before we do anything, make the conscious effort to ask yourself how your decisions and choices will affect the lives of others. Try to look beyond your own needs and see how you can benefit from the life of someone else.
