Alanis was right

As many of you may well know, I tend a web log. What you cannot tell, however, is that I often do my postings from behind the desk at a yoga studio (by the way, I am not an instructor, but I am very limber). As I face the computer, behind me is a large double-paned window into the studio, where the classes are held.

One night not so long ago, a student - late every single class until he was forbidden thereafter to do so - emerged from the room about twenty minutes into the ninety minute class. This is his newest habitual ritual. He has shortened the practice again by slicing off the other end. As he walked into the lobby, he said, "So I looked for your 'Charm School' the other night, but I couldn't find it." This startled me for a moment, but then I realized he had been in the last time I worked, and was standing near the window, as is his wont. Clearly, he was not focusing on his yoga as he should, but that's where he's at.

I replied that it was on a different URL (that's right, isn't it?), and I'm pretty sure I foolishly blurted out the name. I remarked that it had been really good for me, as it was making me write regularly again. Did he tend a blog, I wondered? He averred from behind the blue dressing-room curtain, "No, I'm not narcissistic enough."

Wow.

Let's be clear that though my next statement was, "That's really a mean thing to say, Steve," I still managed to see what was so deliciously humorous about it. The only time someone has accused me of that was about a year and a half ago, when my girlfriend Juliet phoned me from her car. She left me a voice-mail indicating she had just seen the new poster for "Starsky & Hutch." Now, she knows perfectly well my irrational lust for Owen Wilson, so she said, "The thing is, in this photo, he looks a lot like YOU. So, I guess that makes YOU a narcissist." Vainly, I will tell you that I am relieved Owen is quite airbrushed in that particular poster. We have a long standing joke, Juliet and I, wherein approximately 80% of the population is narcissistic; it's our favorite trashcan diagnosis. We are armchair psychologists.

Wait a minute, it seems I have lied, which is rather more the province of sociopaths, to my understanding. I have suffered this accusation one other time, when engaged in a rather long conversation at a party with a psychiatrist from the Portland V.A. Hospital. Among other things, he told me that three or more tattoos on a patient were something of an indicator for Borderline Personality Disorder (um -instantly I thought of my erstwhile fiancee), but given the overwhelming trend of the 90s to inject dye subcutaneously, I'm sure they've had to rethink that one. Or BPD's just a major generational problem. But, as usual, I digress.

At the time, I had a problem with a form of OCD, manifesting in an uncontrollable need to pick at my face. Since I had been unable to break the habit, I asked him for some information or guidance. Clearly I didn't want to persist in self-destructive behavior, albeit relatively benign. He told me at some point, that it seemed a little narcissistic. This was really shocking, so I asked him why. He replied that it demonstrated excessive attention to self. Well, touche, my good man. You got me there. I would even go so far as to say that there were times that I felt literally "locked" into the mirror until my self-eradication was complete. However, I have to say that his take on it is questionable, as my nervous tic was clearly sourced in personal disatisfaction, whereas one of the primary traits of a narcissist is an inability to be self-critical. Nonetheless, the "mirror" screams out an allusion to the old Greek myth of Narcissus' obsessive gazing at his own reflection in the pool.

When I was in therapy about a year later, I asked my counsellor if she thought I might possibly suffer from such an ailment (this was particularly worrisome, because my high school shrink, felt that a family member was of that persuasion). She replied that I could not be, as no narcissist would be capable of asking such a question of themselves. Phew.

Narcissists lack compassion for others. They fail to look deep within themselves. They fly into rages when challenged or criticized. Narcissists eat their young.

I wouldn't trade the experiences that led me to view my upbringing in a certain way - it taught me to value more important things. It helps me survive all the bullshit and tragedy of failed glamour I see on a daily basis here in Los Angeles. The downside is it left me feeling something less than entitled to things which should naturally be mine. That's a story for another time. So my interpretation of the dynamic with my mother, and the face-picking, and the doctor's comment to me is that I inverted and internalized the narcissism I saw in my parent. I was paying too much attention to myself: I was trying too root out any deficiencies or flaws, thereby mimicking her behavior towards me, which was marked by excessive criticism and perfectionism.

So now I blog, and pay too much attention to myself and my issues in the computer mirror. Interestingly there is an article in the January issue of Glamour (of course), entitled, "Women Who Blog: Are they self-absorbed exhibitionists? Groovy free spirits? Or just plain bored..." We are living in an era of public display. Even our game shows are about self-exposure, sometimes on an intensely personal level. We compete to Survive, go under the knife to "evolve," submit ourselves to torture, disgust, shame, and self-confession. Think Springer, The Swan, The Bachelor, Extreme Makeover. Think Fear Factor. All in the public sphere. These seem to me to be social cleansing rituals.

I maintain a certain level of anonymity, but clearly I am part of a culture which for better or worse seeks to examine, define, purge and transform itself.

I may be vain and self-involved, but I can assure you, I have compassion and interest in others. I can even contemplate the validity of criticism.

The irony of all this is that the same guy who came out of Yoga class that day and amusingly called me names, is the same guy who clogged the studio toilet the next week most foully. It overflowed. He left class early, of course, with no mention of it to anyone who worked there. This doesn't make him entirely a hypocrite, but it does mean he lacks some level of feeling for others. And he likes to stir a little shit from time to time. We'll just assume he's a trickster.