Recently I was perusing a site dealing with psychological issues
and I couldn’t help but notice the influx on topics related to narcissism. This
made me wonder about this, because it seems that more and more psychologists
are having to deal with this issue. It’s not surprising though, because the
truth of life is that you reap exactly what you sow.
Most societies of today have succeeded in fostering a culture
of Individualism; where people are taught to fend for themselves, where
families are small and extended families are rarely in the picture, where children
do not stay with parents and move out to be on their own from a very young age.
With this culture of individualism has come an independence like never before.
People seem to be cut off from one another and interdependence between humans
is an uncommon concept. I’m not saying that everything about this type of
culture is negative, but it somehow seems that we have taken it a bit too far.
In our insistence on individualism and independence, our determination to focus
on ourselves, we have somehow managed to create an intense culture of selfishness,
where people are so egocentric that other people may as well be invisible. Hence,
the rise in narcissism does not come as a surprise to me, because with a “me
“culture so intense, what else can we expect.
It’s scary though, to think that narcissism is steadily increasing
as days go by. Imagine what things will be like in the future, imagine a world
where no one even cares about the next person. I know that things aren’t exactly
wonderful right now, but at least altruism and caring for others is still
around. At least people still have feelings for fellow humans, at least atrocities
against others still affect us; at least we are still not yet so self-absorbed
that the world around us has no effect on us at all. Sadly though, if recent
trends are anything to go by, then we are on our way to a world filled with narcissists
and this does not seem like a world I want to be a part of.
As always I think that the key is balance, we need to be
able to find a balance between ourselves and others, a balance between
selfishness and selflessness, because without this balance we are bound to be
dealing with many issues of concern.
