A Sense of Narcissism

(“Narcissus” by Caravaggio)

 "‘I love myself.’ Have you ever said that? It's alright if you have; I won't think any differently about you." I just finished a lot of my school work and it’s pretty late at night, so my apologies for possibly coming off a little crazy. But hey, who doesn't like a little crazy in their life now and then? If you, the reader, were looking for my completely biased opinion on a specific topic, well you came to the right place! What is Narcissism? The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines Narcissism as, "A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts" Are you thinking of someone you know when you read the definition? I bet you can think of one person. Maybe it’s you? I'm just kidding, we wouldn't dare shine a bad light upon ourselves. The point is that this is a mental disorder. Now, I'm not saying the person you are thinking about is going to be labeled with narcissism disorder, but in my opinion, I think we all can have some strands of it. Just like people of tendency to be "OCD", even though a person diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder clearly cannot function every day normally due to order and cleanliness. I know this is going to be a very debatable topic, what I'm about to discuss, but I really would love to hear your responses. Not I am clearly not speaking for everyone when discussing this, but let’s take the lovely social media, that is in more countries than paved roads, the wonderful Facebook. Who knew a completely bias background check disguised as "social media" would be so popular among the masses? I mean everyone has one. You can almost put anything on this site that you find acceptable for all your friends to see. You want to put a cute puppy? You got it! You want every to know how awful your day was? Post away! You want to post a video of someone abusing a child or small animal and justify this brutal video by saying it's to raise "awareness" so the person in the video can be brought to "justice"? Not really sure why you would post it...but hey, you want likes and people to notice you so do it! You want to post something extremely personal that is really inappropriate and no one really wants to see? Pssh, morals smorals, you post that status. Can't get enough of it? Take Facebook and split it in half. If you want just statuses, join Twitter, or if you just can't get enough photos, try out Instagram. Did we mention it has filters?! Now before you get upset and rage, let me make it very clear that I am a complete hypocrite. I have a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; I use them all daily. Am I saying that everyone who has social media is a narcissus? Of course not. One of my recent statuses on Facebook received over forty likes on it. Do you know how high my ego sky rocketed from that? All these people thought I was funny and witty! Well, for that moment anyways. Why do I care so much about how many likes I get, or have more people following me than me following them on Twitter and Instagram? The thing is that I am right alongside the people who live and die by the social media. We worry or try to be seen among all the people and one of the main ways, is to stick out. We're not breaking new grounds with this social media, but who doesn't want to be seen and noticed for their differences. The main point I'm trying to convey is that there is nothing wrong with liking yourself. If you are still humble and yet confident, then people will like you and want to be around you. They won’t if you’re making some controversial post about politics, religions, or what you had for breakfast. Is it really going to matter in the long run? I'm not going to call anyone out, because I am one of the most narcissistic people I know and many friends of mine can agree to it. I mean, this entire blog is titled Jacob Gunter's Logic. Do you think I can sometimes come across as a little cocky? All in all, this post isn't really going to change anything and it's not really that bad. I mean, people have always tried to stick out to be seen and to be loved, even if it is a post of you playing victim, or that you're such a "bad" person. Take the scene from the first Pirates of the Caribbean, the Captain tells the infamous pirate, Jack Sparrow, "You could be the worst pirate I've ever heard of." Jack Sparrow smiles and responds with, "but you have heard of me." We all can relate to this. We maybe sometimes think that bad attention is better than no attention. My thoughts on this is really to just point out that we all can have tendencies of narcissism, but maybe it’s not such a bad thing. We can have a little high self-esteem and love ourselves, as long as you love people just as much as yourself. The main focus is that if it makes you a better person, and it doesn't do damage to you or the people around you, well maybe it’s alright; we can be a little bit of a narcisSUS.