I'm not narcissistic, I just like to write about myself

One of my favorite scenes of the TV show Ally McBeal is when a colleague asks Ally why her problems are so important. She replies: "You know what makes my problems bigger than everyone else's? They're mine."

That comment strikes a rare balance of simultaneous selfishness and universality. We all feel that way, at one time or another, but few of us have the self-absorbed audacity to admit it. At least not publicly. Ally's candor and self-aware insecurity make her a sympathetic character, if an occasionally obnoxious one, drawing viewers into her honest, self-important world.

Connecting with an audience via the self requires:

• a command of language
• proper use of form
• illustrating a bigger picture outside of the self
• speaking to the audience from the standpoint of an equal
  

Otherwise, the use of the self seems superfluous and narcissism ensues.

The term narcissism, according to Wikipedia:

"refers to the personality trait of self-love, which includes the set of character traits concerned with self-image or ego...Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others."



That Greek myth of the cursed god, Narcissus, condemned to fall in love with his own image, has morphed into a modern day psychological phenomenon. Wiki even offers explanations of several different types of narcissism as a personality disorder, including my favorite, healthy narcissism, which,

"is formed through a structural truthfulness of the self, achievement of self and object constancy...[and] forms a constant, realistic self-interest and mature goals and principles and an ability to form deep object relations."

Healthy narcissism? Is that a misnomer or perhaps a loophole which can somehow justify my self-absorption?

Regardless, the distinction is subtle and could mark the difference between good and bad writing, work which either draws in readers or alienates them. "Healthy narcissism" in writing uses the self as a means to convey an aspect of the human condition, rather than using the self as the focal point for its own sake.


In his essay, "Learning to Breathe After the Memoir," E. Ethelbert Miller uses himself as a subject without backsliding into self-importance. He shares his story to benefit others, as well: "We write as individuals," he claims, "but our words often become fruit and bread for others" (Forche and Gerard, 161).

Miller's comparison of words to sustenance echoes references made in class about bloggers 'feeding' hungry readers. He intends to connect with readers and does so with his personal story. Although Miller writes about his experiences as a black man, his memoir spans a much wider range of readers. His use of self is about much more than an identity limited to race or gender.

Using personal experiences as a starting point, Miller reaches outside of himself to weave a story into the wider cultural fabric. His self-references extend into a world beyond his individualism. He fits a painful conversation with his father into a larger context:

"Two bodies in the dark, one talking and the other listening to a strange sound coming from where pain and hurt is mixed with depression and the blues, and if you cry for everyone and not just yourself, this is where you discover the Middle Passage, the Holocaust, the plantation, the concentration camps, the bombing of cities and whatever is left. This is the howl Allen Ginsberg described for an entire generation. That spoken unspokenness" (Forche and Gerard, 162).

My identity and reference points are starkly different from Miller's, which all factor into his writing. Nonetheless, I'm able to relate to the pain and humanity expressed in his work, eager to read more.

On the other hand, blogs like Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP and cjanerun exemplify narcissism, and not the healthy kind, through their disconnection from the reader. Rather than offering 'tales from the trenches,' they offer self-serving perspectives from a pedestal.
GOOP provides impersonal anecdotes and suggestions to readers who likely cannot afford or relate to the lifestyle promoted by the celebrity blogger. Paltrow's fabulous life is not made accessible to the reader, but rather held up as an unattainable ideal. Also, she name drops in a way that does little besides reinforce her own status. For example, Paltrow writes:

"Recently, I have enlisted the services of an old friend in the style department. Elizabeth Saltzman, the long time Fashion Director (and now Contributing Editor) of Vanity Fair and one of the best dressed girls I know has been getting me dressed when I need to dress up."

In short, Paltrow has an enviable Rolodex of fashionable friends whom I (and most likely, you) will never know. She does, indeed, have a wonderful life, but the way she presents it does little for me, the narcissistic reader. GOOP is more of a one-sided display and less of a symbiotic writer-reader engagement. The narcissism is alienating and, as a reader, I am unlikely to revisit her blog.

CJANERUN is slightly more aware of her narcissism, as indicated in the afterthought of a post-edit. She attempts to clarify and explain her original post:

"Something isn't right about this post, it is my tone. Chup was painfully explaining to me that I didn't go far enough in letting my audience know that this post was about self-deprecation."

However, even the obsession to get the post right has more to do with her reputation than a genuine concern to connect with her readers and offer them something more than her own self-proclaimed status as a "serious" and "literary blogger." She gets in her own way and falls into the trap of self-serving narcissism (is that redundant?).

Furthermore, even self-deprecation can be narcissistic, if the use of it fails to reach outside of the subject's own self-serving world.

Miller writes, "stepping outside of oneself can be risky" (Forche and Gerard, 159). We write about what we know, and, presumably, what we would want to read, which often involves the self. That very notion may be inherently be narcissistic, but it can also be altruistic. That makes it healthy, or at least worth reading.