Distribution Automatique

Friday, June 27

Nada, narcissism used to come up regularly as a discussion topic on the poetics list. I remember reportiing then that I feel that there are two types of narcissism more or less along the lines of two types of cholesterol. There is "good" narcissism, that actually contributes to one's self esteem and ultimately one's abilities to solidly assess and utilize the strengths and weaknesses of oneself and others, and "bad" narcissism. like bad cholesterol, which tends to mostly damage self-esteem because it is not anchored within constructive self and social relationships. No activity or writing or form, even self-portraits, are necessarily more or less narcissistic than others. The same writing might contribute to one person's bad narcissism and to someone else's good narcissism. Everyone needs to obtain positive self-esteem. As they say, "the love you take is equal to the love you make."