Survival is all that is on my mind right now. Savings are literally saving my ass but that’s supposed to go towards gas and other things. That’s all that’s on my mind right now, to you the reader. Surviving. I ultimately know I’ll probably be fine as soon as my job pays me, but other people are not so fortunate. This concept of survival expands from the individual to family and then, what we call society. Then, it goes from your neighborhood, populated area (from small town to big city) and then your country. The hierarchy of survival then tops out on the global scale, what we now know as the “global village.”
The great Dr. Frank Yeomans, a clinical expert in treating narcissistic and borderline personality disorder, described in a youtube video how malignant narcissism will be our undoing. Every single one of us has some narcissism but passing a certain threshold can lead to damaging effects on you and society. Generally speaking, we tend to select people who are malignant narcissists for positions of power because of their charisma and ability to make life sound easier than it really is. An extreme example of such persons is Jim Jones.
I couldn’t have resonated more with his message. Intuitively, I’ve always kind of felt like this but I couldn’t put language to it. I, myself, have tried to be a creator for good in the challenges provided to me from destructive narcissism. Coupled with an inability to believe in myself, I’ve taken the bait numerous times. There is no satisfying people of the malignant. How can you blame them for their outlook on life and their desire to destroy. Life is very difficult, and no one wants to see/hear that. It is much easier to be a blocked creative and leech on to the energy of others, especially if you have none of your own.
Narcissism, especially the malignant kind, can expand into organizations, parties, families and nations as well. It’s inevitable due to the fact that group associations encourage one to create a vilifying perception of an outside group and their own people.
There is a good reason for this narcissism. It’s quite apparent in the process of globalization that it was more than just a great survival mechanism. It was necessary. Everyone was (and still is) striving for survival, from the everyday worker to the government of a first world nation. Hustling & striving for a day, one day, where heaven on Earth will appear. That is why in 2022, we have young people from Asia and especially Africa scrambling to get to Europe on baby boats.
Can you blame them? At least in the case of Atlantic Africa, the infrastructure that was supposed to be built up by able hands was used as tender for the selfish(narcissistic) economic systems that prized goods of comfort and ease–on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. An Asante (modern-day Ghana) statesman once told a British visitor in 1817 that there was no need to produce homemade goods en masse because that is what the British were for. 100 years later, LOL. This attitude was pervasive from the 1700’s up till today. unequivocal decline in innovation and new ideas that could have come. Deadening of possibilities all in the name of comfort and reliant ass economy.
Perhaps it is human nature, and we are just designed to strive for comfort for the self and continue this cycle until the Earth implodes. Maybe that is why we are all politicians, negotiating and acting in such a way that ensures our survival and ultimately our comfort–me included. However, self-awareness is key and striving to somehow integrate immediate needs with constructive systems that ensure our species’ survival is crucial. I hope that this mindset somehow reaches the depths of each young adult’s soul who dare to be different and creative. The world is yearning for us to make a difference especially the youth of the continent of Africa (primed to have the largest population of young people in the world). The world is our oyster. Let’s make it so.