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.