Random other thoughts. Narcissism as a style doesn't really work for me, although I once tried very hard to adapt to it as a cultural norm. It's because ultimately I relate dialectically and in a very analytical way. So I can't just put myself out there and receive adulation. I have to analyse and dissect what it all means. Western people who adopt a narcissistic style take this as a sign I am uncertain of myself, a view that is enhanced if I have attempted to adopt the mode of seeming to be full of swagger and self-confidence in the first instance.
As I mature, I find my natural style is much quieter than that which I take to be the Western cultural norm. Indeed, I also perceive that even the Western cultural norm is changing and the attitude of quiet self-confidence that Julia Gillard adopted seems to be evolving into one aspect of the cultural norm.
So I don't try to be the forced extrovert regarding matters that don't naturally interest me these days. If I'm not competitive financially, that doesn't bother me. If I have a narrow range of interests (philosophy and martial arts and camping), that's just the way it is. I'm not obliged to try to perform in a circus only to be told that isn't good enough. As I said, I don't reap many rewards from even a successful circus trick, since I don't work for praise but to gain more material to analyse. The rewards and punishments for pretty tricks therefore always seem disproportionate to the efforts I put in -- that is, if they do not give me intellectual grist for the mill.
Over the years it seems I don't get gratification from narcissistic supply, but rather this bombastic approach to life interferes with my natural patterns, which are to be low key, at least in terms of mood and attitude, no matter what sorts of things I have to say.
I realize that I do offend people sometimes, but it's easier to see the nature of the offence and how realistic it is when the terrain is not covered with a fog of egoistic needs and expectations. Also, my cultural errors of not following through with an egoistic mindset after I have seemed to set out with one are obviated when I do not try to conform to such cultural mores in the first place.
At least people can see in the first instance, "Oh, she's not cut out for sales or being a superstar..." I'm far too dialectical.
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