Thursday, October 24, 2013

The Cure for Narcissism

Recently, a proud mother posted her precocious twenty-something son's blog on Facebook. His words were intelligent, reflective and heart-centered. She had worked diligently to raise such a thoughtful child and his kudos were well deserved.

What struck me was his feeling, rightly so, that too many people live in a cyber-sphere divorced from the wonders of the natural world and human contact (assuming human contact is a good thing these days). The fact that he was using the very tool he eschewed made me smile; escape is near impossible from this 21st century virtual ecosystem.

As a creature inhabiting this cyber environment, my commitment and challenge is to write a blog a day for a year: 79 posts already dispersed into the ethers, with 286 expected to arise. Undergoing this process has lead to some unexpected discoveries -- perhaps not as world shaking as Madame Curie's -- but interesting to me nonetheless.

Therapists and psychiatrists: if you have a patient who suffers from narcissist personality disorder, I have the perfect cure. Assign them to write one blog per day for a minimum of one year and they will never be so involved with their own thoughts and opinions ever ever again. In fact, they will be so sick of their rambling brain and the stories it spins out that they will smile with glee when someone else performs their schtick. Or maybe they will run screaming into the forest to live the life of a mendicant yogi, feeding wild deer from the palm of their hand.

On another bright note, writing a daily blog might steal business away from priests of all stripes. After all, what better confessional than a computer keyboard, a quiet hour or two, and a cup of espresso to purge the soul of its unquiet mind.

For those cyber-friends who are participating in my therapy sessions, at times identifying themselves with "a comment," a "like," or a "share," thank you for being part of an undefined yet tangible circle of healing in the Narcissist's Anonymous room of my mind.








No comments:

Post a Comment

Resisting Revenge

For decades, Myanmar suffered under the yoke of brutal dictatorships, but from 2011 to 2021, it experienced a brief period of relative freed...