I mentioned this to the hubsquad that most recently met up in Boulder, that I very much love this (now inactive) writer that goes by the title The Last Psychiatrist.

I am "Alone." What does that mean? It means that no other characteristic should matter to you, the reader, except that there's only me, whatever that is.

I don't write anonymously because I want to protect my career [...] I write anonymously so that you aren't distracted by my age or lack of manners or political sympathies. They don't matter. If you want to say that narcissism didn't play the crucial part in this maniac's murder of his daughter just because she liked the wrong kind of guy, then we can have a good rumble. But if you want to say that narcissism didn't play the crucial role because-- I'm white, or single, or drunk; then you're trapped in the generational circuit of illogicity that is the very point of this blog.

Now they say that a pivotal or profound reading expereince is half the material, half who you are when you encounter it. That's why a fifteen year old wouldn't appreciate Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being but a heartbroken and forlorn 22 year old would. So it is important, at least enough for me to feel I have to mention it, that The Last Psychiatrist (TLP) was such a force in my life because it very much found me at the right time, the time that I was enmired in but unaware of my exploration in who I was. You could call it identity formation, but even that doesn't quite capture it. I was basically feeling the effects of Narcissism.

That's almost, you could say, what the entire blog is about. But what is Narcissism?

Because TLP treats the issue so many different times, it's hard to find the single best summary, but here is where I would start.

Now I'll quote it, but really, you should read it.

Selfish and grandiose. Looking at that definition, do you even come close to narcissism?

Of course not, because your mind is shielding you from the truth. The belief that narcissism is synonymous with grandiosity is, itself, a narcissistic defense. You are being lied to, by yourself.

His driving force is a desire to reveal the effects (and causes) of Narcissism in our daily lives, and his power lies doubly in his writing style and his ability to take a passage, present it to you, and then make inferences about the author or the subject matter using the very same words you read.

Read on,

This is Why the American Dream is Out of Reach

One Way our Schools are Training New Narcissists

and, Hipsters on Foodstamps which is a link to the hubski post that drew kleinbl00 out of a self-imposed exile and started a discussion that I always wanted to have on this site.

steve, waywardsamurai, rob05c, beezneez sorry for the followup delay, here it is. And if any of it particularly strikes your fancy, please do tell, I have a backlog of favorites.