culture of narcissism
Narcissism is a condition of wanting to be better than others. There are several reasons for this, the biggest being Hollywood.
I don’t know what it is about Hollywood movies — maybe the very nature of the Hollywood industry is so competitive that unless you are the best, you are nothing at all — but Hollywood films are written from the logos of “unless you are the best, you are nothing at all”
To be better than other people (richer, smarter, better looking) is a basic requirement of self-acceptance
And I think people who watch too much Hollywood (or Bollywood, for that matter — the logos of Hollywood are bleeding over to every industry of film-making) become narcissists through the unconscious fabrication of their basic world-construct.
It’s easy for people to see the narcissism in Wolf of Wall Street but it’s hard for them to see that also Harry Potter is a fundamentally narcissistic film: it’s about one boy with God-given special powers.
Perhaps in a sense too, Hollywood itself is founded by people of Abrahamic backgrounds who believe in this messiah/savior, one-to-rule/save-them all…”this one is a cut above the rest”
This necessity of “being better” in order to be “merely enough” is the cause of narcissism.
But then, now, miraculously, you almost need to be “better” just to be “enough” — not merely for your own ego but in a very real job-market competition sense.
For every job you want there are people more qualified and willing to work for less money…so that you are driven to be better — or, more effectively, present yourself as better — for the sake of making money.
Once again, fuck money. Fuck Hollywood
You know the Huberman types? The “self-improvement” types?
I wonder how much of that is driven by narcissism…
The antidote to narcissism is to live outside of society and to read books.
When you read books you feel so fucking not-special.