Round Up #13

Anti-Web Addiction

I have added the Focus chrome extension, and I couldn't be happier with it.  You select websites that are time-wasters, and it will block those sites for you for a set amount of time.  The default amount of time is 25 minutes, but I set the time for 8 hours.  The sites I have set to block during that time is Twitter, You-tube and Espn.  This way I check them once, maybe twice a day.


Aphorisms/Shorts

To be on record saying there is nothing of worthwhile in world literature is to admit to being too ignorant or too stupid to pattern-match whole classes of human knowledge.

Contempt brain is stupid brain.  It doesn't really matter how smart you would be otherwise.

Writing "I'm waiting" or "I'll wait" on an online conversation shows you are a stupid, narcissistic baby that doesn't know how communication, relationships, or even the internet works.

I'd think about defending the American Way of Life after World War II, but there isn't one.

Trump is just what would have happened if Jay Gatsby had started out with money.

We can be very precise only about things that have almost no meaning.

"Of course there is still hope. . . because I'm special.  I'll figure out a way for the powerful to listen to me.  . . . They'll be ashamed of themselves, just like my other servants who clean up my messes."

The Annotated Guide to Narcissism, Part 1

Reading the Uruk Series turned me on to the-- unfortunately now defunct-- blog The Last Psychiatrist, which has the best writing I have ever seen on the nature of narcissism is general, but in particular the American version we all get to live with here in the twilight of an empire.  Curiosity compelled me to see how all the blog's writing under the label “narcissism.”

What follows is survey of the blog posts, trying to extract some of the most valuable quotes and ideas.

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Our journey into narcissism begins with a relatively short post, entitled "Murder-Suicide" written over a year after the blog’s inception.  I have only read a few of those earlier posts, but they more about neuro-chemical, neuro-biological side of psychiatrist, which was what I thought the dividing line between psychology and psychiatry.  The tone of the earliest ones was heavily professional, trying to lean on research.

The first piece in the corpus isn't spectacular, but it ends with a kind of declaration:

The societal question is what has happened to many men that they are unable to define themselves, or affirm their value, except through another person.  And "love"-- or its distortion-- and aggression are closely linked in such people.  But that's narcissism, and it's the disease of our times. (emphasis mine)

The next piece comes later in the same month on December 17, 2006, commenting on when Time magazine, "inspired" by web 2.0 made "You -- Yes You" the Person of the Year.  This is one of

After first explaining how the author misused a quote, TLP (The Last Psychiatrist) writes:

So Grossman is not really paraphrasing Carlyle correctly.  This is important because Grossman is a book critic with a PhD from Harvard in comparative literature.  Either he simply did not know this about Carlyle, which I have to assume is impossible, or it didn't matter: he commandeered the quote, stripped it of the meaning Carlyle intended and used it the way he needed to use it.  And that exactly describes the problem:  truth and reality aren't important, what's important is you.

This is from 2006.  Just think about how this dynamic has developed metastasized over last 12 years.

I've come up with my own term, a Stan, which means STandard American Narcissist.  It is here that TLP begins describing what makes a Stan a Stan:

Being on YouTube, having a blog, having an iPod, being on MySpace-- all of these things are self-validating, they allow that illusion that is so important to narcissists: that we are the main characters in a movie.  Not that we're the best, or the good guys, but the main characters. That everyone around us is supporting cast; the funny friend, the crazy ex, the neurotic mother, the egotistical date, etc.  That makes reminders of our insignificance even more infuriating.

Next, another quote that elaborates on being a standard American narcissist.

I'm not saying each of us as individuals is insignificant. We should, could, matter. But to protect ourselves from an existential implosion,  we decide to define ourselves through images and signs, rather than behaviors; lacking an identity founded in anything real makes us vulnerable to anger, resentment.  But no guilt, ever.  The narcissist never feels guilt.  He feels shame.

The last claim really struck me.  It’s probably too absolute, but turning it over in my head, I see what it is broadly correct.  I'd say that a Stan starts building up stories involving grievances and indignation to try to push (more like batter) guilt away.  This makes America a land of Iago’s, not MacBeth’s, something I plan on writing an essay about some day.

And lastly, the prediction (keeping in mind this was 2006):

It can't last.  If society chooses to make narcissism the default, it's going to have to deal with society-wide narcissistic injuries-- when we suddenly realize that it isn't solely our movie and we're really not the main character.  And no one wants to see this stupid movie anyway.  This inevitably leads to violence . . .

Aphorism disclaimer.

No aphorism is 100% true for 100% of the time.  That’s not how aphorisms, or language, even remotely works.  (See, even that was written in punchy aphorism form.  I have a problem.)

I tend to think in aphorisms.  It does great harm to my writing style because I often have a hard time elaborating enough to fill out a normal-size piece of writing.  Also, I am not popular enough and my thoughts are not conventional enough to work on anti-social media.

Because of this I plan to write more pieces where I quote an aphorism and try to elaborate a bit.