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The orthodoxy seems to be that narcissism arises out of childhood trauma but I was listening to a woman yesterday who was saying "Rubbish!". She also said don't comfort yourself with the belief that the narcissist is hurting inside because some of them are having a wonderful time.

Personally, I don't think you can categorise human behaviour. Or at least, while it can be useful to put people into categories a point will come where the filing system breaks down. Like I'm a librarian and here's a book that features an Elf detective solving cases in the greenwood- so what shelf do I put it on- Crime or Fantasy?

I think narcissism exists on a spectrum. Some people are just a bit narcissistic and some are full blown. The current US President takes it into the realm of caricature. I doubt anyone is entirely free of the syndrome. I mean, we all like getting our own way, don't we?

Again I believe you can outgrow it. I look at my behaviour as a young man and think, "That was pretty controlling." However, I'm not like that now....

Why was I so controlling? Because the world was well scary and I needed allies. And if my chosen allies didn't entirely see things my way I tried to bend them to my will. In my case narcissism rose out of Fear- and if I'm no longer narcissistic it's because I've stopped being afraid.....

I thought I'd research Narcissism- and suddenly Youtube was throwing all sorts of stuff at me. "How to spot a narcissist", "Things narcissists hate", "Narcissists want to kill you". Ooo er! Seems like narcissists are as common as daisies in an unmown lawn.

Only not as pretty.

I suppose I must have encountered the little buggers before now without realising it. Ailz says her mother was a narcissist. Yes, that fits.

They want to absorb you like the Abzorbaloff played by Peter Kay in that episode of Dr Who everyone hates. The thing to do is to refuse engagement. Don't argue, don't apologise, don't give an inch. Hold fast to your own truth but don't bother to explain it because they won't be listening.

Basically they can all just fuck off.

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Happy Wednesday!

I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!

Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!

Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.

Michael Billington ranks Shakespeare's plays in order of merit. These lists are great fun if only to prompt disagreement. He puts The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the bottom and Henry IV parts one and two at the top. Second to last is Cymbeline and the runner-up to Henry IV is Twelfth Night. He places Hamlet at number three with Macbeth rated just above King Lear. Coriolanus is the best of the Roman plays and he likes The Winter's Tale a good deal better than The Tempest.

Not much to quarrel with there. I've never read or seen The Two Gentlemen so I don't have an opinion on it but I'd put Cymbeline- which fascinates me- a little higher. As for the top spot, I'd give it to Hamlet....

The complete list can be found in today's Guardian.

The British Prime Minister struggles to hold onto his job. He pretends he didn't know things he must have known and which it was his business to know. I'd be inclined to dismiss this as a headline-hogging distraction were it not for the Epstein dimension. Everything that's happening these days at the top level in politics and industry (including the entertainment industry) has an Epstein dimension- and it's this generation's business to get to the bottom of it.

This should have been posted yesterday so it's out of sequence. I was too embroiled in an exchange of missives/missiles to remember to transfer it over from LJ......

Parent and adult child- that's such a difficult relationship.

They may not even like one another but.....

.....The parent wants to control the child, the child wants to control the parent.

Each finds it hard to accept that the other may have different values. Neither can quite accept that the other is a separate person on a separate life path.

Parent says, "You're an actor in my play". Child says," No I ain't, you're an actor in mine."

Why must they carry on pushing and pulling until something breaks?

Big bust-up yesterday with a family member. I'm not going into details.

The pot has been simmering on the hob for years. It's a relief that it's finally boiled over.

They no longer have to make nice with me and I no longer have to make nice with them.

Minimal contact is now called for. Not hostility but a merciful agreement not to go on causing one another discomfort. I don't know how this will work out in practice.

Conversation isn't really an option. We talk different languages.

According to the astrologers these are the days when everything changes. All those planets piling up in Aries for the first time in many thousands of years. This is the Shift, the watershed, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius- all that kind of thing.....

I look for signs. It seems like American hegemony is ending. Victor Orban loses the election. A British P.M. wobbles......

And in myself? A growing acceptance of things as they are, less resistance to change, a whittling away of ego. Or are these just passing moods? Dunno. Self-analysis ain't really my thing....

There was a new moon last night. New Moon in Aries no less. I looked for it. There were clouds.

In one of last night's dreams the US president turned up late for a meeting. I sniffed the air, wanting to know if he really smelled as bad as everyone says he does. It was a very boring meeting- no-one had anything to say- so I slipped off into the woods to build a bonfire......

We were talking about dentistry and how expensive it is.

Those of us who grew up in the middle of the last century believe we should still get free treatment on the National Health.

One friend was saying how he has to keep politely turning down procedures he doesn't really need. He thinks his dentist is trying to recoup some of the money she spent on all the high tech equipment she has installed in her surgery.

One of the things she bought is a 3D printer that makes crowns while-you-wait.

I've never been a smoker. On the one or two occasions when- as a kid- I took a drag I thought, "But this is disgusting".....

I've tried weed. It makes me cough.

But last night I dreamed I had bought myself a pipe and was smoking something mellow and fruity. It was an expensive hobby but what the hell! I can't think where that came from- unless it's just that I've seen one portrait too many of J.R.R. Tolkien......

This is a strange time.

I've lived through any number of international crises and this one feels different.

Somehow less involving....

Less believable.....

Perhaps because the people who are orchestrating it for us are so absurd.

The President most of all,

But his lieutenants too. People like Dick Cheyney and Henry Kissinger were horrible but at least appeared to know what they were doing, whereas Pete Hegseth and all the other chappies whose names I'd have to look up because they're so unmemorable come across as incompetent and hysterical and silly.

It's like we're in the universe of the Three Stooges.

One looks at what they're doing and one thinks (well I do anyway)

"Come off it!"

"You having a laugh?"

"Get real!"

Since I started this post I've learned that the President just posted this image on his website.

O, the presumption, the self-pity, the tone deafness!

After the spat with the Pope and the picture he posted of himself as Jesus you'd think he'd have known better than to keep on digging....

I mean, really!

I put Proust to one side. He was going on and on- at inordinate length- about the Duchess of Guermantes (not to be confused with the Princess of Guermantes) a person who interests me very little.

And I picked up Bleak House.

Fourth time of reading? I think so.

These big books, every time you pick 'em up the experience is rather different.

I'm struck by how well constructed it is.

I never liked Esther Summerson but now I find I do. Her fake modesty is rather endearing.....

I'm disconcerted by the degree to which my philosophy of life accords with that of the calculating scrounger, Harold Skimpole.

I find it hard to believe that Lady Dedlock would have concealed her past from her husband- or that he would have been bothered by her having had one. The English aristocracy has never been in thrall to Middle Class morality....

Ailz says I should have put sugar on the list, along with alcohol, caffeine and salt. I don't remember the doctor mentioning it, but perhaps she did.

I like cake, but I don't think I have a sugar problem. I don't add it to anything, anyway.

Ailz also says that if we cut processed food out of our diet our intake of salt and sugar would fall to an acceptable level....

High Blood Pressure.

I'm told I've got it- or, at least, the little machines say so.

What do you to counter it (apart that is from taking nasty medicine)?

You cut back on alcohol, caffeine, salt.

Now interestingly I've been cutting back on alcohol and caffeine anyway- not for any thought-through reason but simply because I no longer want them. Wine, beer, coffee? No, most of the time I'll pass. Make mine a lemonade or even water. Water is good....

Because I think the body has its own wisdom. It knows what it needs or doesn't need. It makes its requirements felt.

It hasn't yet told me that it doesn't care for salt, but I'm listening.....

Mars conjunct Neptune. The warrior meets the Mystic in the house of getting things done.

And this at the beginning of a week which will see planet after planet move into the same sign- Aries, the Ram- until, by the 21st there'll be seven of them there. Expect a shift.

And maybe not any old shift but (definite article and capital letters) THE SHIFT. The Big One.

I'm not an astrologer, so none of this is mine, exactly- I'm just passing it on.....

Picture Diary 127

1. Approaching the Chateau

2. Citrus

3. Pointy

4. This'll do for now

5. Skycat

v2kQVUigi0K6hIdaqhqp--0--s7_7q_2x-real-esrgan-x4-plus.jpeg

6. A perfect sphere

I dream I jump from a balcony in the gymn. I realise once I am in the air that it's rather further to fall than I had imagined. Thankfully I am able to stop myself in mid-air a foot or two off the ground and adjust my arms and legs before making a safe landing. There is someone I need to see. I have no idea who. I march up to where they are sitting and say, " I present myself to you with my bloodied face."

denise posting in

dw_maintenance

I keep forgetting to post about this: we've been troubleshooting the "missing notifications" problem for the past few days. (Well, I say "we", really I mean Mark and Robby; I'm just the amanuensis.) It's been one of those annoying loops of "find a logical explanation for what could be causing the problem, fix that thing, observe that the problem gets better for some people but doesn't go away completely, go back to step one and start again", sigh.

Mark is hauling out the heavy debugging ordinance to try to find the root cause. Once he's done building all the extra logging tools he needs, he'll comment to this entry. After he does, if you find a comment that should have gone to your inbox and sent an email notification but didn't, leave him a link to the comment that should have sent the notification, as long as the comment itself was made after Mark says he's collecting them. (I'd wait and post this after he gets the debug code in but I need to go to sleep and he's not sure how long it will take!)

We're sorry about the hassle! Irregular/sporadic issues like this are really hard to troubleshoot because it's impossible to know if they're fixed or if they're just not happening while you're looking. With luck, this will give us enough information to figure out the root cause for real this time.

A friend copies me into an email message beginning "All my life has been about....."

How does one respond to something like that? I favour, "Duly noted."

Know oneself? Oh absolutely. But be chary of sharing that knowledge. Mainly because you're likely to become a bore.

Anyway, other people will already have their opinion of you. Nothing you say is likely to change it.

And they will have noticed things you have always carefully skirted round.

A great line from Touch of Evil. Marlene Dietrich gets to deliver it. I assume Orson Welles wrote it. "What does it matter what you say about people? He was some kind of a man....."

A new friend says, "Don't ask me what I do, or how old I am or why I never married- because I'll simply make thing up....."

Now that's the spirit!

The central courtyard at the Meeting House is a nice place to sit in summer, furnished with wooden furniture on which time is working its slow magic. There used to be chairs but they have collapsed under us one by one- leaving three benches. A week ago one of these went at the joints. Two wooden benches are not enough for a garden party.

But the tip shop has garden furniture. Yesterday we- that's Ailz and I- bought three sturdy plastic chairs at a fiver each. We didn't consult, we didn't have a committee meeting, we just did it.

The courtyard garden is cared for by Anthony. Unpaid. He visits from London and does things when nobody is looking. Bushes get pruned. Bedding plants appear. Last Thursday there were zinnias in a bed where no zinnias had been before. I have met him a couple of times. He's shy. I have never got to the bottom of his devotion to a Meeting House he doesn't attend.....

One of our more recent attenders asked if he could make a donation towards the tea and cake. I said, "Well there's a piggy bank on the kitchen table. But alternatively bring stuff- tea, cakes, biscuits...." I wish I'd added, "Surprise us..."

I like this haphazard way of keeping things going. The amateurishness.....

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qatsi

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