The Expanded Narcissist Truths – No. 3

We come cloaked in our finery to dazzle and bewitch yet this enthralling and alluring appearance is but an artifice designed to cater to our needs and keep that which the world ought not to see at bay.

Shall I be the charming boyfriend who brings you breakfast in bed or the grizzled tyrant that bellows from the landing demanding to know why the right shirt is not available even though you ironed seven of them yesterday? Perhaps I will be the cheery neighbour who stops and compliments the fellow next door on his new motor vehicle or do I rake a key down the paintwork smiling to myself as I feel the Thought Fuel at his dismay washing over me?  How about being the benevolent boss who is magnanimous in his appraisal of a junior employee or might I be the savage dictator whose fleck infested diatribe reduces the underling to tears? Passionate lover or glacial companion? Entertaining purveyor of anecdotes or bilious issuer of put downs? Such choices.

Yet it is not just a matter of good or bad, there is more to layer on top of that. Do I regale my friends with that story of how I went marlin fishing in Bermuda to impress them even though it was my brother who went and I have taken his tale to be my own? Do I claim the theories of a fellow academic as mine when discussing matters with the undergraduates in my tutorial group? Do I claim to know much about the works of Bach because I have glanced over my girlfriend’s play list of classical music? That snippet of conversation that was overheard discussing the merits of staying at the Cavalieri Hotel in Rome and the ‘views to die for’ becomes my stay there last month. A useful review of Transpotting 2 in the broadsheets is commandeered to become my opinion which receives nods of approval when I recount it over dinner.

Why feel the need to be something that we are not? This varies dependent on the school from which we hail but at its essence remains this indisputable fact; we do not want to be nor can we be, that thing which we spend our time escaping from. Most of our kind do not realise this. They have no comprehension that a construct has been created for the purposes of ensnarement. Ensnarement of victims and the continuing ensnarement of The Creature. They do not know it, believing that their construct IS them and hence should you act in a way that attacks that construct through criticism then the response is intense, volcanic and instant. Those who form the majority of our ranks are unable to make such a distinction, unable to recognise what they have created and what they are imprisoning but believe their own creation to be them. Such is the power of delusion. They have no choice in determining what they will be today. They are governed by the instinctive need to respond as the fuel dictates and thus the rage-filled father who smashes his son’s favourite toy was not chosen but appeared because that was what was required to respond to his son running to his mother and not him. The doting son who faithfully calls his aged mother every Sunday without fail notwithstanding her dismissive treatment of him ordinarily is one compelled to do so in order to maintain his facade of decency and to irritate you when you suggest he ought to put her in her place. The quiet yet charming man who is the complete gentleman on the dates you have together is one which has been constructed out of need and is a programmed behaviour to bring about seduction. Whichever way these of our kind face is as a consequence of need – fuel, the facade, the acquisition of residual benefits – and it matters not if there is a swing from demon to angel in the space of the minute, but that is what must occur.

Furthermore, the repeated regurgitation of lies to furnish the construct for the purposes of  attraction is an instinctive response. The lie is believed because the Lesser or Mid-Ranger perceives his construct as what he or she is and thus the knee-jerk boasts, the blatant exaggerations and the out and out lies about achievements, status, job, number of lovers and the number of times one has seen U2 in concert are viewed as truth. Challenge them at your peril. The Lessers and Mid-Ranger have no choice in terms of how they furnish their construct and how they respond to the appliances around them.

The Greater of our kind exert choice but it is always within the confines of the overriding objective, namely, all is as the fuel wills it to be. Thus, the decision to berate a shop assistant is one of choice but is governed by the need for fuel. The decision not to answer your telephone calls is one of choice but again is subjected to the requirements of fuel. We Greaters have more substance than our lower-ranked brethren, we have the achievements, the abilities, the successes but it is never enough. One must be better, more popular, more attractive, more muscular, more accomplished, more, more, more. Thus that which is already there was deemed not to be good enough. So there must be the embellishments, the exaggerations, the add-ons. Pilfer here, acquire there, purloin this and steal that in order to make that cloak the finest ever created. You might suggest we ought to be content with the considerable abilities that we already possess but that is viewed from your perspective. From ours, there is always another higher mountain to conquer and it must be conquered because if we do not stop driving forward then we risk perishing.

I wield tremendous power. I can be anything I want and do whatever I please. Yet, as Lord Acton sagely stated,

“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I have absolute power but it has been corrupted because it is always subject to another force, that of the need for fuel.

I appear as the dictator with seemingly unrestrained power and influence as I choose to be whatever I want to be.

Yet I have come to realise that I am the puppet government put in place by fuel.

Listen to ‘The Expanded Narcissistic Truths – No. 3’