anon_003
Rising Star
There are some great responses here. Macre's response above ^^^^ is what I resonate with most. I think the whole "hippy" movement of today is a most patent example of vanity.
This is the problem I see with this sort of vanity. It is like this red herring that detracts from the actual message or movement of something... the vain people are ruining the credibility.
My old roomate, X, encapsulated these traits to such a degree that it truly blows my mind. I am talking narcissistic, megalomaniac, jesus-complex level self-obsession. From my observation, it had everything to do with an underlying belief that he was the greatest thing anyone had ever seen before.
As E.G. was saying, sometimes it can be easy to project your own shortcomings onto other people. This was NOT the case here.
The only place my roomie would ever hang out with anybody at was his room. The thing was, his room was basically just a shrine of himself. He is an artist of the # spiritual sort. You know, third eye and the flower of life etc. His room probably contained, in a conservative guess, about 80 peices of his own art.
This might not be bad in and of itself, but the thing is with X is that THE ONLY THING HE WILL LITERALLY OPEN HIS MOUTH TO TALK ABOUT IS HIS ART. EVERY SINGLE TIME I CHILLED WITH HIM (and we lived in this house for a whole year), he would grab copies of several peices of his art, and ask me to give a detailed evaluation of them. When several people were over, just trying to party, he would do the same. It always turned into an awkwardly forced art critique. This wouldn't even necessarily be bad either, but he wasn't doing it for critical feedback. NONE of his friends knew anything about art. When it wasn't "tell X that his art rocks" time, he would talk about everything he did the last summer in alaska, and scroll through some of his tens of thousands (I'm dead serious) of pictures of him in alaska, explaining in detail exactly what was going on that day.
He was infamous around campus for being "the longboard kid".... he had this flashy, attention-grabbing, neon-colored, dayglo, #trippy longboard that he rode any time he was going anywhere. He wore similarly flashy clothes. He frequently talked about DMT to his narcissistic supply... cough I mean friends... but despite NUMEROUS free offers to try it, adamantly declined.
I love that test of Annies. I used it once on him. Being so #spiritual, one day I asked X what spirituality meant to him.
His reply? "Basically, we are all one" :?
(Tremendously sorry for that rant)
He had no message, and this is the problem with vanity. "Please don't dominate the rap, jack, if you've got nothin' new to say" - Grateful Dead, New Speedway Boogie
"A red rose absorbs all of the colors but red, therefore red is the one color it is not" - Aleister Crowley. In my experience, there is a lot of truth to this quote. Whenever you see vanity, you've got to wonder: WHAT psychological need is this person fulfilling by obviously drawing attention to themselves? Usually, I think it is just have others have said... compensation. They need other people to acknowledge something about them.
If you've got something new and interesting to say...... Vanity is a good thing!!!! Look at David Bowie, Kanye West, Prince (RIP) etc. These guys were vain as all heck but they had a real message. The vanity helped them reach more people. And sometimes it is just fun and harmless to be vain!!!
I think that with vanity, context is everything.
This is the problem I see with this sort of vanity. It is like this red herring that detracts from the actual message or movement of something... the vain people are ruining the credibility.
My old roomate, X, encapsulated these traits to such a degree that it truly blows my mind. I am talking narcissistic, megalomaniac, jesus-complex level self-obsession. From my observation, it had everything to do with an underlying belief that he was the greatest thing anyone had ever seen before.
As E.G. was saying, sometimes it can be easy to project your own shortcomings onto other people. This was NOT the case here.
The only place my roomie would ever hang out with anybody at was his room. The thing was, his room was basically just a shrine of himself. He is an artist of the # spiritual sort. You know, third eye and the flower of life etc. His room probably contained, in a conservative guess, about 80 peices of his own art.
This might not be bad in and of itself, but the thing is with X is that THE ONLY THING HE WILL LITERALLY OPEN HIS MOUTH TO TALK ABOUT IS HIS ART. EVERY SINGLE TIME I CHILLED WITH HIM (and we lived in this house for a whole year), he would grab copies of several peices of his art, and ask me to give a detailed evaluation of them. When several people were over, just trying to party, he would do the same. It always turned into an awkwardly forced art critique. This wouldn't even necessarily be bad either, but he wasn't doing it for critical feedback. NONE of his friends knew anything about art. When it wasn't "tell X that his art rocks" time, he would talk about everything he did the last summer in alaska, and scroll through some of his tens of thousands (I'm dead serious) of pictures of him in alaska, explaining in detail exactly what was going on that day.
He was infamous around campus for being "the longboard kid".... he had this flashy, attention-grabbing, neon-colored, dayglo, #trippy longboard that he rode any time he was going anywhere. He wore similarly flashy clothes. He frequently talked about DMT to his narcissistic supply... cough I mean friends... but despite NUMEROUS free offers to try it, adamantly declined.
I love that test of Annies. I used it once on him. Being so #spiritual, one day I asked X what spirituality meant to him.
His reply? "Basically, we are all one" :?
(Tremendously sorry for that rant)
He had no message, and this is the problem with vanity. "Please don't dominate the rap, jack, if you've got nothin' new to say" - Grateful Dead, New Speedway Boogie
"A red rose absorbs all of the colors but red, therefore red is the one color it is not" - Aleister Crowley. In my experience, there is a lot of truth to this quote. Whenever you see vanity, you've got to wonder: WHAT psychological need is this person fulfilling by obviously drawing attention to themselves? Usually, I think it is just have others have said... compensation. They need other people to acknowledge something about them.
If you've got something new and interesting to say...... Vanity is a good thing!!!! Look at David Bowie, Kanye West, Prince (RIP) etc. These guys were vain as all heck but they had a real message. The vanity helped them reach more people. And sometimes it is just fun and harmless to be vain!!!
I think that with vanity, context is everything.
