Queue the 80’s action movie music (I’m going in...)

A marginal guy must save a hot chick from bad guys; when he does, he gets the girl.

I just described 853 movies from the 80’s and 90’s. 

Remember how everyone went ape shit over violence in movies? Swords, guns, explosions, rape, murder, beheadings...oh my. New ratings, new warning labels. Phil Donahue running himself ragged up and down the aisle. 

True, 1 hour of primetime Airwolf for instance contained a higher body count than some (most?) slasher flicks today.

But the people who wetted the bed over how much violence was in these films never watched them. Because if they did, they would have seen the real boogie man. The story or as described in the first sentence, the lack of one.

Violence is like a laugh track for movies that obviously can’t use them. It’s meaningless. “Did you see his head come off?” say the teens as they loudly annoy pizzeria customers discussing the movie. None want to behead a guy, they just want the chic at the end of the movie to want them. Just the like the chic in the movie wanted the guy who did the beheading.

What really drives all these 40 year old men today is the story they were raised on 30 years ago.

Hint: It wasn’t violence.

A generation of adolescent boys learned immediately four things: 

1. marginal guys are the real heroes. That’s right. Sit around watching tv, doing nothing and eventually the story will find you.

2. heroes never die. Shoot em, stab em, fall several stories. They might have a bandage on at the credits but they always have the pussy.

3. bad guys exist as bad guys, not as good guys who went bad, or bad guys with some good in them also.  Darth Vader was unquestionably bad starting in 1977, unimaginable that he was once a sweet young boy with good in his heart.  That story had to wait a whole generation to be told.

4. in order to get (active verb: to obtain, procure, convince) a hot woman to fall passionately in love with you, you  have to do do some extraordinary things: take out thirty terrorists, master kung fu, be in the special forces, etc.

Fast forward 30 years.

No extraordinary things. No terrorists slain. No kung Fu. Just taking out the trash. Chasing off the the neighborhood cat. Cubicle office job monday thru friday...And what women could be attracted to that?

Just add water and you have adolescent 40 year olds. Of course, 40’s the new 30 and bulls the new shit.

“Men today don’t want sex as much, I blame Porn...” Wrong.

The male libido falls not because he's not interested in the woman he's with, but because he's not interested in the movie he's in. Repeat this sentence again. Aloud. 

Uh-oh. Now we come to the crux of the matter.

What drives us men and especially the narcissist is that HE feel like the 80’s action hero in YOUR eyes. He thinks you are lying if you tell him you love him and want him because deep down he knows that he hasn’t really done anything (he thinks) to truly have earned that love. Thanks a lot A-team.

Even if he’s in a Long relationship, he suspects that this women could not love him without the 80’s sitcom music introducing him, so he’s out of sorts. Distant. Not ready to procreate and will prefer masturbation since he can’t stand the gaze of a women he probably shouldn’t have (and who is probably cheating on him with - you guessed it - an updated version of the 80’s action hero).

Plus no one is looking back at him during masturbation, to judge. Not really.

There is some truth to the porn actress looking back at the camera as too actually perform for the male audience not a voyeuristic thrill but a sensation that, oh, thank god, she notices me. 

But that only works if its the “real me” she’s checking out.

Not the guy sitting here alone touching himself of course but the guy I will one day be. Ripped and tan and irresistible, with a terrorist under my boot....A real live girlfriend would 'see' thru all that unless she is a borderline. Seeing yourself, especially as you are ruins sex.

Sad part is (queue the slow piano piece) she may truly love you despite the fact that you act tough and pretend to be in special ops and do the whole strong, quiet type at her sisters wedding. She knows your a dud on the big screen and chooses to just laugh at your antics with her friends. But that only causes you narcissistic injury and if anything causes violence, even in weak, timid men, its injuring the narcissist within.

(insert explosion)

N.

N. answers mail. (sit up straight)

  So besides lots of ‘love it’ and ‘keep em coming’ type of responses, many of the comments I receive can be consolidated into mainly two.

1. Are these stories you tell true?
2. I am a narcissist just like you and want to stop acting this way, help!

   Let me use a story to address the above. You won’t think I’ve answered either one when I’m done yet I will have answered both. That’s mostly due to the fact that you need a laugh track and voice over to assist you in thinking. Thank you television sets. No one can be told what the Matrix is, they have to see it for themselves. 

One such movie that points us in the right direction is Enigma from 1983.

Didn’t see it or don’t remember it? Who cares.

This is about me, remember? But the plot of enigma and the answer you seek, is all about sacrifice. 

Not the definition of sacrifice YOU think of when you hear the word sacrifice.

Which is probably taking something you have (say: money, pride, time) and giving it up or giving it away. This will not do.

Because, you still get to play the lead, the saving role. The admired one who chooses to lack, but not really. Oh look at me, ‘sacrificing’. ‘Sacrificing for my kids/spouse/nation/god’...blah, blah, blah but what you are really doing is getting the affection you crave. You have found a way to remain the center of attention due to your so called sacrifice. That such surrender is even effectual is also doubtful. What you have then is just a different kind of transaction, not sacrifice.

So instead try this...try sacrificing something you do not have so that you have even LESS so that some one else gains something they only thought they had but didn’t. 

Clear as mud? Need an example?

Like a son who steals a fake piece of art from his mother. Why? Because the mother doesn’t know the art is fake, she has thought it real and extremely valuable her whole life and furthermore an Uncle and co-owner of the art wants it sold and so its fraudulent nature is soon to be exposed to all. So to hide this fact and save face for his Mother, the son steals it and flees. 

No parades and memorial days for this sacrifice. 

He took what he didn’t have (and still doesn’t/its a fraud) at great loss (he is now labeled a thief) to gain FOR ANOTHER what they never had. Think. about. the. other. 

Batman also tries this at the end of The Dark knight. He 'took' the blame and gave Gotham a lie, which gave them something they thought they had (hope) but didn't. Until now.

In Enigma (1983), Martin Sheen’s character is recruited by the CIA to steal a code breaking tool in cold war Germany. Except the CIA already has the code breaker.  The problem is, that the KGB suspect this and have suspended the use of the code. So...the CIA wants to send in Martin Sheen in order that the KGB will now THINK the CIA does not actually have it since, duh, Sheen is after it. A mission the CIA wants Sheen to fail at so that the KGB will relax and use the code once again.

Sheen’s very public mission failure is the sacrifice. The son’s theft is the sacrifice. Batman’s lie and evolution into the dark knight is the sacrifice. All hunted without mercy, rather than paraded as people to revere and mimic. But oh well.

You can’t battle narcissism by asking how to be less narcissistic. That is in itself a selfish question. It is the wrong question. The Matrix still has you. Instead, start describing yourself without using the word ‘am’. Then start doing for the other. 

N.