On Narcissism - by Ruby LaRocca
It’s not uncommon for seventeen-year-old girls to feel overly self-conscious. I have been compulsively blow-drying my bangs for years; rogue elements like the wind and rain would entirely discompose me. The idea that my bangs had to be straight was becoming a major problem in my life. Ridiculous, I know. But if you are a young woman I’m sure you have your own version of this living hell. Recently I decided to stop my manic behavior, and just let my bangs air dry. It’s a whole new world, folks.
But my self-image has taken some hits recently. Around this time last year I started developing a pink constellation of rough bumps on my cheeks. On my face, which had survived sixteen years without a single pimple! It turns out all my years of heavy, uncontrollable blushing were just a prelude to the main act: rosacea. It’s not very noticeable in my usual northerly climate, but hot weather traveling has induced what is, to me at least, a catastrophic bloom across my once creamy cheeks. It gets worse.
Tomorrow I’m having an early graduation party with my far-flung family and friends—really, getting lathered with attention by lots of generous, witty septuagenarians (as you know, my favorite demographic). My anticipation came to a screeching halt when I woke up with searing pain in my right eye. I applied hot compresses liberally and hoped it would go away. It only got worse. A trip to urgent care revealed a serious chalazion, or blocked oil gland in the eyelid which causes the upper lid to swell uncomfortably, blurring vision and irritating the eye. (Sorry, definitely too much information. But I’m trying to make it visceral!) And, in a twist of fate both funny and sad, the nurse said I had given myself a first-degree burn on my delicate lid with all those compresses. So here I am—looking like an inept pugilist—about to have all eyes on my eye. Teenagers! Can you feel me?
Yet never may he wreath his arms around
that image of himself. He knows not what
he there beholds, but what he sees inflames
his longing, and the error that deceives
allures his eyes. But why, O foolish boy,
so vainly catching at this flitting form?
The cheat that you are seeking has no place.
Avert your gaze and you will lose your love,
for this that holds your eyes is nothing save
the image of yourself reflected back to you.
It comes and waits with you; it has no life;
it will depart if you will only go.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3. 339 - 509 (trans. Brookes More, 1922)
Mythic Narcissus is an impossibly beautiful youth who falls in love with his own image in a pool and drowns grasping after it. (I am not suggesting any parallel in that way, of course!) But for me there is something worth understanding about having a vision of myself that is not me, an idealized projection that impedes self-knowledge. For us mortals, narcissism is the distance between who we are and the alluring notion of who we feel we can be. In my Latin-y way, friends, I’m trying to say that incessant self-consciousness is an ancillary form of narcissism. It can be debilitating, causing us to drown in a pool of delusions.
I promise I have not subjected you to blank verse and my medical history for no reason. Sympathetic for my teenage suffering but impatient with my complaining, my mom had me listen to several illuminating reframing meditations by Sam Harris as part of my work for the day—to not only listen, but to write down what I thought was most important, and to try to explain it to someone else. As unlucky, ordinary, or stressed as I feel right now, Harris reminds me, more than a billion people imagine a life like mine when they think of the happiest possible life; if I were suffering the things they suffer, I would be desperate to have this life. If I had died yesterday, he continues, think how much I would give to be back with my family in this moment, however tense or mundane. Thinking about disaster, death, disease in moments when you feel irritated or self-righteous—when, as I often do, you feel the need to lament how unfair all this is—simply remember, Harris says, that “to have spent this day free from some terrifying encounter with chaos is to be lucky.” It’s not morbid; it’s the first step to feeling gratitude for what you do have.
Our thoughts (usually the recurring, hyperbolic, subconscious ones) have a tangible effect on our moods and interactions. The purpose of meditation, Harris says, is to recognize that one does not need to “be identified with thought, confused by it, ruled by it, and suffer by it in each moment.” Practicing meditation, then, is really practicing how to be better company—if you are not made crazy by your crazy thoughts, you will be an especially great person to be around. The teen’s biggest problem—I say from personal experience—is that ever-running, internal, insufferable commentary. Plot twist! No one cares! “Everyone is merely striving to be happy,” as Harris puts the human conundrum, “all the while chattering to themselves in such a way as to deny happiness any place to land.” It is usually the case, my young friends, that what we whisper to ourselves at night has little or no purchase on reality. Feel compassion for your small catastrophes—your party night eye infections, if you will—but accept life as it is.
If you’re keeping up with Ruby’s homeschooling syllabus, listen to these four short meditations on Sam Harris’s app Waking Up under Mind and Emotion called “Gratitude,” “Solving Problems,” “The Power of Regret,” and “The Necessity of Thought.” If you can, I highly recommend purchasing a subscription. (Check out their commitment to affordability by awarding need-based scholarships.) And if you’re a budding classical scholar—it is never too late!—here is Ovid’s version of the Narcissus myth in full.
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