The moral narcissist is above human suffering on principle

He will allow nothing and no one on which he can depend and from which his powerful control will suffer or, God forbid, be hurt by rejection. He will will devalue within himself everything that could bring pleasure. Especially if this pleasure depends on someone else. He will get rid of everything and everyone in order to prevent even a potential outward appeal of his drives. At the same time, he will freeze all his drives and desires. He will dry up his soul, proving to himself his power over his desires: he does not want anything, and there is no need to want. He is above it all. And his control over his needs and desires is second to none.

And he ends up becoming…a “patchwork quilt.” His “self” is an unreliably sewn cloth or even a sieve that does not hold a cohesive image of personality. Inside himself he is lonely, gripped by a fantasy of megalomania, but in essence he is a small child, puffing up his cheeks, striving to resemble a stable adult…

Summary

You’re convinced,
That if you could only control…
Your mind.
Your money
Your time
Your breath.
Your energy.
Your body
Your faith
Your relationships
Your prayers
You would open the door
To happiness, peace and contentment.
As it were…
Ram Tzu — real name — Wayne Lickerman, is an “enlightened teacher” of Neo-Advaita.

No matter how much we try to deal with our own vulnerability, our dependence on people and reality, no matter how much we run away from our limitations and experiences, we fail to fully take control of our humanity. We remain only human. Weak in some ways and strong in others; autonomous in some ways and dependent in others; coping in some ways and failing in others. And that’s okay.

The narcissist is afraid to give up all the ways of coping with reality described in this chapter. This, too, is his attempt to cope with his feelings of inferiority. It seems to him that to accept the fact that he is not grandiose will make him utterly insignificant and he will completely lose hope of ever becoming normal.

The task of development is to give up the infantile claim to rule the world mightily. In return, a person receives all the riches of ordinary life: good relations with people, love, friendship, tenderness, sexuality, realization of potential, and much more.

Fragments from the forthcoming book “Fragile People: A Secret Door to the World of Narcissists”