![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptA wonderful writer has the necessary self-image to show the methods by which she has constructed excellent deconstructions.
Politicians court votes and popular opinion, keeping one eye on re-election as they make decisions that can affect millions. Corporate CEOs, Wall Street traders, and Capitalists of all sorts attempt to take as much money as they can without having to give any back, trying to predict the future and use it to make money.
People believe this is wrong and individually join their voices in the belief that they can change the system and make it fairer.
Religious officials of several belief system tout that they have all the answers to life's questions and problems contained in their book, in their interpretation of the book, or in their heads. (Librarians, educators, and researchers actually have them, but the necessary research time is an exponential function of the complexity of the question.)
The founding of the nation I reside in rests on persons saying they could build a better life in lands unknown to them than in staying in the society they were raised in.
Advertisements blare from billboards, media outlets, shopping places, and the people that I talk to. The obsession with proper branding and the label of the product trumps the actual functionality and utility of the product. Persons famous for things other than what they are barkers for rake in obscene amounts of money by lending their endorsement to this product or that.
Authors, screenwriters, and dramatists flatter us by presenting us with ways to vicariously live lives far more exciting that ours, in strange worlds or new dimensions. They generate emotional responses from us to their creations, they give us dreams of a world that may never come to pass in our lifetimes, and they inspire us to take action to change our world and ourselves.
An entire complex of media and product tell us that we are inadequate by ourselves, and that our goal in life should be to look like the impossibly beautiful, makeup'd and digitally enhanced persons staring back at us from the TV machine or the glossy covers of magazines.
An entire population of people are secure enough in their bodies and images that they push back against this as hard as they can, and generate beauty outside of that message.
To make music or art, to tell stories, to orate, or to toast, one or more people must be confident enough in their skills to play in front of an audience, even if just an audience of themselves.
Millions of us have blogs and social media accounts, and we have the confidence in ourselves to broadcast these thoughts of ours to others, to find others whose thoughts we like, dislike, agree, and disagree, and to have discussions with them on all of the subjects above.
We have the self-confidence to show the outer world who we are inside, to not be ashamed of our kinks and fetishes, our preferences, our orientations, our dysphorias, our headspaces, and to campaign for acceptance by the world around us, but not to be defined by it.
So, what does narcissism have to do with me? In as many ways possible, narcissism has everything to do with me. In greater and lesser degrees, it powers the very things that you and I use, follow, enjoy, and produce. In excess or deficiency, it becomes a hindrance, but with enough self-confidence and self-image, all things are potential.
In writing this, I am engaging in an act of narcissism, because at the root, I believe what I have to say is important enough that I want you to read it. Even if up in the conscious brain, society tells me that such things are Unacceptable and that I must deflect any praise received, lest I believe that I am important.
"But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free."
--Prospero, The Tempest, Epilogue.
Politicians court votes and popular opinion, keeping one eye on re-election as they make decisions that can affect millions. Corporate CEOs, Wall Street traders, and Capitalists of all sorts attempt to take as much money as they can without having to give any back, trying to predict the future and use it to make money.
People believe this is wrong and individually join their voices in the belief that they can change the system and make it fairer.
Religious officials of several belief system tout that they have all the answers to life's questions and problems contained in their book, in their interpretation of the book, or in their heads. (Librarians, educators, and researchers actually have them, but the necessary research time is an exponential function of the complexity of the question.)
The founding of the nation I reside in rests on persons saying they could build a better life in lands unknown to them than in staying in the society they were raised in.
Advertisements blare from billboards, media outlets, shopping places, and the people that I talk to. The obsession with proper branding and the label of the product trumps the actual functionality and utility of the product. Persons famous for things other than what they are barkers for rake in obscene amounts of money by lending their endorsement to this product or that.
Authors, screenwriters, and dramatists flatter us by presenting us with ways to vicariously live lives far more exciting that ours, in strange worlds or new dimensions. They generate emotional responses from us to their creations, they give us dreams of a world that may never come to pass in our lifetimes, and they inspire us to take action to change our world and ourselves.
An entire complex of media and product tell us that we are inadequate by ourselves, and that our goal in life should be to look like the impossibly beautiful, makeup'd and digitally enhanced persons staring back at us from the TV machine or the glossy covers of magazines.
An entire population of people are secure enough in their bodies and images that they push back against this as hard as they can, and generate beauty outside of that message.
To make music or art, to tell stories, to orate, or to toast, one or more people must be confident enough in their skills to play in front of an audience, even if just an audience of themselves.
Millions of us have blogs and social media accounts, and we have the confidence in ourselves to broadcast these thoughts of ours to others, to find others whose thoughts we like, dislike, agree, and disagree, and to have discussions with them on all of the subjects above.
We have the self-confidence to show the outer world who we are inside, to not be ashamed of our kinks and fetishes, our preferences, our orientations, our dysphorias, our headspaces, and to campaign for acceptance by the world around us, but not to be defined by it.
So, what does narcissism have to do with me? In as many ways possible, narcissism has everything to do with me. In greater and lesser degrees, it powers the very things that you and I use, follow, enjoy, and produce. In excess or deficiency, it becomes a hindrance, but with enough self-confidence and self-image, all things are potential.
In writing this, I am engaging in an act of narcissism, because at the root, I believe what I have to say is important enough that I want you to read it. Even if up in the conscious brain, society tells me that such things are Unacceptable and that I must deflect any praise received, lest I believe that I am important.
"But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free."
--Prospero, The Tempest, Epilogue.
