Narcissism (自恋狂, ナルシシズム, 나르시시즘)

Donald Trump, after a tumultuous week of cutting off Joe Biden vigorously at the debate to testing positive for coronavirus to being hospitalized at Walter Reed Hospital to somehow getting his doctors to release him from the hospital back to the White House, went off the rails today with a tweet by stating that he would restart talks of a stimulus package to boost the economy as a result of Covid-19 ONLY AFTER he gets elected president a month from now, essentially holding hostage his money that Americans desperately need to pay rent, meet basic expenses, etc. so that he can get re-elected (which is looking less and less likely now as he becomes more and more desperate seeking it. It's like Gollum from Game of Thrones. I guess America isn't used to long reigns of tyrannical and fatuous rulers who don't care about the people of the country, or at least they've had the power to rule those presidents out fairly quickly (in 4 years), but Trump is really living out the life of a terrible ruler (China, Japan, European nations all over the world have had them) in just 4 short years. One of the major flaws, most would agree, is his Narcissism: he loves himself too much and thinks he's the hero of the story, a trait that is reflective of the times we live in. 

I'd argue that this generation as a whole is more Narcissistic than any generation before it, probably because we all think that we're the best, and the technology and culture around us promote that. Facebook and social media outlets all promote us as the main character of our stories, everyone is encouraged to have a Podcast, a Youtube channel, an instagram account, if not all of them, and because usually the hero of the stories we read come out on top, we all believe that eventually we'll come out on top, and we're all rooting for ourselves to succeed, usually not questioning ourselves enough to stop and see our major flaws and barriers. I'm guilty of it it as well: whenever I digest news or information from other people, I process it more in terms of what that gets me, how I can benefit from it. 

Another related symptom of narcissism is that we all think that we're right all the time. It's a true epidemic where everyone has the Internet right at their fingertips, we read a few headlines about the news or whatever topic we think we know pretty well, and then think that we've become the "authority" on that topic and argue with each other based on the limited information we have. I try to live under the philosophy that I read in 7th grade "7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens," one of which is Seek first to understand, then to comprehend," basically to listen to people, but society does not listen for very long to anybody before firing back with their own opinions, especially on social media. I can't log on to any sites without seeing a post banging the drum and voicing a strong opinion (usually political) and forcing others to think like them or else shaming those who don't. My sister Emily is part of this new generation of college-educated twenty-somethings who have strong opinions on things despite not fully understanding them who claim to like "challenging" others about their beliefs. She's often very quick to say that I'm "mansplaining" something to her if I give her life hacks like how to study better, concentrating on learning a new language, etc., while berating me for not tipping the Uber driver 20% because it doesn't meet her undeveloped ideas of how society works (she thinks that Uber drivers work hard and don't get enough from Uber to manage their costs, so we as customers need to be the ones to subsidize them.) Fun fact: there is a Freakonomics podcast episode that delves specifically into tipping of rideshare drivers. I often wonder, was I like my sister when I was in my early Twenties? I look back at my posts from 10 years ago and get lost in all the fantasy sports conversation, but have never taken too much a stance on politics/ life issues. I think political topics should be treated like religious topics: don't talk about it the first time you meet someone or when you're in a group of people, maybe discuss it in the right private settings and have an earnest serious discussion about it with room for understanding and compromise on both parties. Otherwise the topic tends to stir up too much emotion and cause too much argument in a friendly social enviroment. 

It makes sense, this "hero complex" that we all have: people back in the previous century and beyond usually read books about sad events, tragedies like Shakespeare or Dostoevsky or William Faulkner, to the stories during the Great Depression like the Grapes of Wrath, books written about world wars, about plague and unsanitary working conditions. People suffered a lot back then, it seems, and had to persevere through extreme hardship and learned to appreciate the simple pleasures in life (like having kids!) Nowadays the bestselling books are hero adventure stories like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, or it's not even books but video games where you get to be any heroic figure you want to be. We like to tear down anybody else and criticize things like the government that others have built, but don't endeavor to build stuff for ourselves because it's too difficult, despite living under the allusion that anything we build ourselves would be perfect and fit exactly what the world wants because we were able to do it in Sim City or other video games, why couldn't it work in the real world?