The Narcissist

On Friday I went to dinner at Hidden Valley Country Club where I found myself talking to the current wife (referred to hereafter as Ms X) of my current wife’s (the Lovely Sharon) ex-husband. Go ahead and figure out that chain of who’s who. For a few minutes between our table and Ms. X’s table there had been some mention about this blog whereby Ms X pronounced that she had not read the blog nor even heard of the blog but believed I was a narcissist for writing a blog. The way she said narcissist it sounded a like she was saying I was a leper or animal molester. I initially disagreed with her about me being a narcissist because I knew I was not taking legal or illegal narcotics of any kind. Then I remembered I was taking pills for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. So I thought maybe those pills are narcotics and therefore I am a narcissist after all.

Later when looking at the definition of narcissism on the Webster Dictionary on line I learned that narcissism means (1) ego, egoism; and (2) love of or sexual desire for one’s own body. Although the Lovely Sharon is in Palm Desert for more than half the year and during that time I learn to make do, I was pretty sure that Ms X was not asserting that I was a narcissist for writing a blog because I had love of or sexual desire for this overweight, broken down body. That leaves definition number (1) ego, egoism. Now I had to check Webster for ego and egoism which were defined as follows:

     Ego: 1(a) a doctrine that individual self-interest is the actual motive of all conscious action, (b) a doctrine that individual self-interest is the valid end of all actions; and (2) excessive concern for oneself with or without exaggerated feelings of self-importance.

     Egoism: (1) concerned with the individual rather than society; (2) taking the ego as the starting point in philosophy or (3)( a) limited in outlook or concern to one's own activities or needs, or (b) self centered, selfish.

So, it was pretty apparent that Ms X’s assertion of my narcissism for writing a blog was not a compliment; although maybe she was referring to egoism definition number (2) that the ego is the starting point in philosophy, but I doubt it.

Last night at dinner in our kitchen I asked Sharon about the narcissist issue and she said that blogs were generally about the writer’s life and therefore by definition, were narcissistic. She then added the caveat that despite her general assertion, she wasn’t saying my blog was narcissistic. My rebuttal was that following  her definition to the logical next step anyone who wrote an autobiography is a narcissist; anyone who gives their personal opinion in a newspaper column or editorial is a narcissist’ and anyone who writes a letter to grandma telling her what was going on in their life is a narcissist. I then made a fatal error in my logical argument when I proclaimed that if I used her logic, what would she think if I said that blondes were generally dumb but I wasn’t saying she was dumb. Yes, you can imagine that the conversation went downhill from there. The dinner conversation stopped like the end of an old 33 1/3 rpm record on a Motorola turnstile where you can just hear static as the records spins aimlessly around. I eventually slithered down into the Bud Cave.

This morning I thought more about this entire narcissist issue and concluded that I have a few options as to the blog:

     A. I can terminate the bog;

     B. I can from hereafter only discuss matters in the blog that have no direct relationship to my life such as (i) junior high school English curriculums, (ii) historical studies of small towns in mid-western states and (iii) the life of some fellow named Bob who is married to the Lovely Thema; or

     C. I can say screw it and blog on in my own narcissistic manner.

I choose C so:

This morning I woke up at 5:00 am, brushed my teeth, made coffee, read the news and then wrote a blog about what a narcissist I am.