Echo and Narcissus
Many years ago I became quite enamoured with the artworks of John Waterhouse, a famous English Pre-Raphaelite painter. One painting in particular stood out for me “Echo and Narcissus”. That’s it above. I’m not certain what I saw in Waterhouse’s work or for that matter the paintings of many of the other Pre-Raphaelites, the beauty, the dreamlike quality, the general aesthetic, the romance. Overall it was a mixture of all of these qualities.
I didn’t think much back then about the condition called “narcissism”.
Here is the general story of Narcissus.
In Greek mythology, the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was distinguished for his beauty. However, his rejection of the love of the nymph Echo or (in an earlier version) of the young man Ameinias drew upon him the vengeance of the gods.
It is said that he was so impossibly handsome that he fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Narcissus’ name lives on as the flower into which he was transformed and as a synonym for those obsessed with their own appearance.
These days there is a lot said about narcissism. In modern psychology narcissist is defined in wikipedia as,
“Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one’s physical appearance and an excessive pre-occupation with one’s own needs, often at the expense of others.[1][2]
It is human nature to be selfish and boastful to a certain degree. There is a significant difference between healthy narcissism, being self-absorbed and difficult and having a pathological mental illness like Narcissistic Personality Disorder“
Narcissism is associated with selfishness and self centreness. arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder.
Here is my take on narcissism.
To have empathy and true love for others one would need to have a certain amount of self love, emotional security and an ability to differentiate oneself from other individuals and objects. To me this shows that one would have to work on the ability to have space between oneself and the world around them. An ability to differentiate and the capability of seeing the needs of others. Most of us were brought up being told to do unto others as you would have them do to you. Each major religion seems to have this as one of its basic tenets.
It isn’t all that easy to be compassionate and caring all of the time but it certainly is rewarding if you can pull it off. It is so easy to think of your own needs first, the more we consume and rely on external stimulation for our happiness the more we can tend to think that the world revolves around us.
Amongst the most fundamental premises that I personally believe to be true are that we should not evaluate for or invalidate others. This would include talking badly about people behind their backs, telling them what is wrong with them without offering some sort of workable solution (for them), manipulating people’s emotions for personal gain, having a viewpoint about how others should conduct themselves or even offering advice that you believe will help the person become more like your own personal concept of how that individual should be from your perspective.
It would also involve looking for the positive things about a person (or situation) and leaving the negatives to sort themselves out. This may not always eventuate but by focusing on the positives you will get more “positive energy” out of the person or whatever situation you find yourself in.
I suppose your best weapon against people obsessed with their own needs is to be able to set boundaries with them, to make it clear what you will or won’t tolerate and to realise that while you probably can’t change the other person you sure as hell can change or improve yourself and your reactions and responses to external pressures and demands.
I suppose that there is a fine line between not caring and not becoming too involved with such people and simply giving them as much love and compassion that is possible for you to give.
I’ve always felt that the ideal situation is to finish an interaction with another person with them feeling a bit better than when it started. I’m not kidding myself though because I know there are times when I am incapable of doing this. Times when I react badly, times when I feel caged in and times when I feel that I must defend myself or my integrity.
It doesn’t really matter all that much what other people think about you as long as you know that you are conducting yourself to the best of your ability and spending some of your energy on self improvement.
We all have intimate and close people in our lives. Family, friends, staff. For me the trick is to do whatever you can to stay in the present when dealing with the other person, adapting to the ever changing scenario that life throws at you and to have no real expectations about what you get back from them. Having said that I also believe that we all have a responsibility to clearly define what we need and want ourselves but with no real expectations placed on the other person. You can always repair things when they stuff up.
I’m not a big believer in analysing situations or having long heart to hearts about what went wrong, even though there is a place for discussions like this at the right time. Life is full of surprises and there will always be a curve ball coming from somewhere. I personally believe through my own experience that the best way to handle situations that get sticky is to respond creatively with as much compassion as possible and create the shit out of whatever you do have to work with. You always have the choice to cut anybody out of your life if they are too destructive or if their negative energy is detrimental to your survival.
Having said all of that I do acknowledge that there are people who are self obsessed, insecure and who think that their needs come before anyone else. There is no way that I am gong to be able to change these people but I can change the way I respond and react to them and try my hardest to shine a bit of light on the situation.
