Understanding Narcissism

[Edwardo Piet]

I was never going to be the next Spielberg.

He told me I would be a world class computer gamer and win tournaments online, he told me my electronic music would become extremely successful and he told me I would become rich playing professional poker. He told my brother his art was not just amazing (it really really is, my brother's art is amazing) but he also said he would be the next Leonardo Da Vinci.

That's an incredibly perceptive explanation of what was going on with your father. Yes, I think you're right. At least as far as my dad goes. He was never able to accept his intellectual limitations. His gullibility. And there's a part of me that wishes he would accept his imperfections. That he would just be a normal human with fallibilities, who I could bond with.

My dad wouldn't just not accept liminations but he wouldn't accept ordinariness. That's why he was always proud of being weird, wacky, zany, different. He instilled that in me so hard that I don't like being ordinary myself, in the sense that ordinariness bores me. I love weirdness.

But he went further than finding ordinariness boring. He was against healthy balance and moderation and normality, he'd rather fail than be average. He said that 99% of people are like sheep and are stupid and that him his wife and his children were part of the 1% who are geniuses and different.

It took me years even after leaving him behind to consider 'Normal' as anything but a pejorative I was raised to take this:...



... literally and very very seriously.

But I'll never have that. He'll always be on the next narcissistic high, believing he's gonna write the next blockbuster screenplay, or Christian ministry. 

My dad too. Merely the crazy goal-setting itself is enough to send him on a high until he inevitably has to deal with his highly idealistic delusion of grandeur, get depressed again and then move onto the next crazy goal.

You ever seen that episode of The Simpsons where Homer joins a Biker gang and says something like "A gang! That's the answer!" and Lisa says "answer to what?".

My dad was doing that all the time. When he was on his next high it would start with "Aha! THAT'S the answer" before he inevitably realized it was all bullshit and recharged before moving onto the next "answer".

Answer to what? Life the universe and everything. His favorite number was 42 after all.

He's an extremely interesting human being... but not always in a good way!!!!