Narcissism needs the repetition of a formula for attention or success that you know works—because any failure and drop in the approval of others is an unacceptable wound to the ego. True creativity was foreign to me while I was particularly narcissistic or self-obsessive.
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I wanted to be sure I could create something good. This metric of goodness, and the tendency for society to abuse metrics to measure people in general, seems to be another way of externalizing selfhood.
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In my case, being obsessed with being good came at the cost of enjoying the creative process. You end up in a horrible cycle where you hate the process of creativity for all its natural imperfections and uncertainty, while loving it for the hope of creating something worthwhile.
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I think of narcissism as an attempt to internalize the audience and judgment of others into the self. Judgment is made secondhand, as is the feeling of control of your own life. The locus of self is externalized, as if constantly examining yourself through a microscope.
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Narcissists know themselves through external opinions, but those opinions are not within one's control. This may sound like self-esteem issues rather than narcissism, but I use narcissism as term for obsession with defending the self without having a secure understanding of it.
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This is a useful description / interview with a narcissist that captures some of these nuances:https://www.thecut.com/2019/01/what-its-like-to-have-narcissistic-personality-disorder.html …
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It is entirely possible to be self-obsessive without knowing the self. In fact, the self only becomes this obstacle or hunger you must constantly feed and supply with attention when you *do not* know it. Like trying to capture something with the negative space around it.pic.twitter.com/36l8xY8LWs
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As for how to escape this cycle, there is no easy fix. It is always a process, because no one can be assured of the assumptions and axioms upon which they build a self-image. The excerpt above has the key advice, which is to know the self on its own terms.
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Not just in a background Greek chorus of mental commentary, judging you to be the greatest or worst person who’s ever lived. Not knowledge of what you do or how good you look. Trying to feel firsthand what is underneath all the bullshit we tell ourselves is shockingly difficult.
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If narcissism is the fear of change, it is no wonder that it is incompatible with creativity. Fear is the killer of most creative efforts, especially in creating/becoming a self that you can live with.
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Artists keep developing their skills, people keep changing their opinions of what’s good or bad art. Neither the audience nor the creative are settled, and is the engine of creation. No perfect entity or god would feel the need to make art to feel complete in the first place.
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