Am I A Narcissist?

In one of my modules this year we are being encouraged to start a blog (if we don't have one already) and this has sparked quite a lot of communication between my peers about blogging in itself. I have yet to tell any of them my own opinion, but I will tell you now: I see, and have always seen, blogging to be therapeutic and good for identifying one's ideas and talking them out to a piece of paper. Sure, I could do this on a piece of paper, or on a  word processor, but getting them onto the internet somehow gives them another dimension.

I have heard one of my peers describe a blog as a narcissistic thing; an egotistical way of telling the world that you think you should be heard. I've heard others say they have no patience to keep a blog, and that if they did anything it would be keeping a diary.

In his description of narcissism, Freud actually says that a bit of narcissism is healthy and good for development (just not as much as Narcissus who the term was named after (this is the guy in greek mythology who falls in love with his reflection in a pool of water)). In a sense I think that Freud was saying that we need to look at ourselves from time to time and think about where we come in importance in our own lives. Do we put ourselves first? If not why not? And should that always put ourselves first or is there just a time and place for that?

I'd like to say that I'm not at all narcissistic, but I know this would be a complete lie so I'll say this instead: most of the time I am not a narcissist. Most of the time I put those who I care about first and myself second. Because this is my choice I don't feel bitterness when people won't do the same for me. I could be selfish to the point of egotism, but I am not.

Writing, you could argue, is a narcissistic subject to study and a selfish medium to practice. It's a way of saying "I know how to write, and you're going to love this book because I wrote it!" though, of course, we don't say that. Publishing a book is throwing it into the world and letting people see it; if you don't have confidence in what you're writing then you aren't going to bother with it. In a way, all writers are narcissists in some way.

Perhaps writing a blog is the narcissist's pass-time, but if that's the case then my peer, who has commented this folly, is a little bit deluded when it comes to his own narcissism. He's a poet, and quite an egotistical one at that. Either way it doesn't matter, only we have the right to judge whether our work is that of a narcissist or not. If the work is good who cares?