This is a topic that I’ve been wrestling with since I was in high school.

We did a role-playing exercise in English Class, and I couldn’t figure out how to role-play and not be phony. It’s really tough to be authentic when you’re young … you don’t know who you are and you don’t have enough power to take the chance of being rejected, and rejected because you are being yourself – you could starve to death. So, hopefully with maturity, you can become more secure and self-knowledgable … and thus trust being your self. Being your self means also loving your self – that’s not narcsissm … narcsissm is loving your reflection, not your self. That’s why narcsissists are so concerned with what everybody thinks of them – their self-worth is dependant on other’s perception of them … so they become obssessed with how things appear, not as they really are.

I think narcsississm is basically immaturity. And an immature society is obssessed with appearances … that’s why young and/or shallow people are obssessed with fashion, the latest look, tv, celebrities, etc … sounds like the city of Los Angeles … Also, for immature people, other people are nothing more than things – he’s a golfer, she’s a waitress, he’s an executive, etc … not that he’s who he is and plays golf – no, people are defined by surface roles in society … Ever watch terrible tv shows where the charecters are not developed into real people? but are just caricatures of people who are part of a sit-com format with formula jokes, etc … not watchable … Also, when people are young/shallow/immature/narcsisistic … they turn occasions into spectales instead of just what they were meant to be … for example, these mothers having over-the-top birthday parties for kids … it’s obviously not about the kid – it’s about how it all looks …

The surest way to bad vibes is phonyness … we can all smell it … To be authentic, trust your gut and don’t worry about how people perceive it … you’ll like yourself and the people who get you are the only ones worth caring about anyway …