On Blogging and Narcissism...

Every now and then, I scroll through the blogs on this website. There are blogs on music, travel, child adoption, relationships, politics, etc. Every conceivable topic is there. This "blog surfing" (or "blog whoring" as I have seen it called) provides a fascinating insight into the human condition, into the scope of what people believe is important in their lives. (I base this last statement on the premise that people would not spend the requisite time and effort to blog unless the topic of the blog is of some significance in their life.)

Blogging is a very narcissistic endeavor. Many blogs are like mine: people pontificating on what they feel is important in their life and in the world. Others blog to selfishly express a side of themselves that they prefer to keep hidden from the rest of the world behind a pseudonym. They use it to express views they cannot express in public for fear of persecution or ridicule.

Then there are the hate-mongers, those who use our precious right to freedom of speech to spread discord (I am trying to be polite here). These individuals are the most narcissistic of all. They use the blog to satiate some perverse need for power over others through self-righteous indignation or parochial proselytizing. (I find the amount of seriousness with which some of these individuals take themselves to be quite humorous.)

It is kind of like the guy in the restaurant who, all week, has had to put up with being told what to do by some jackass boss and decides that to prove they are a man again (after being defanged all week by said jackass boss) they must treat the server or bartender or hostess like their boss treats them: like shit. Everyone knows these kind of people. These are the assholes at the airline check-in counter who demand an upgrade just because...the same kind of people who talk on their cell phone as loud as they possibly can in the checkout line at the grocery store...the same kind of people who bring their unruly kids into a restaurant and justify their refusal to stop them from running around the place by saying things like "Oh, they are just being children..."

I envision these kind of people sitting at their desk, pounding out the words of their blog on the keys of their computer with a pent-up intensity derived from having to be a kowtowing pussy at work all week and, when finished, standup and in a fit of self-righteous satisfaction, punch the air above them and shout "Yeah! I told you motherfucker!".

What idiots...

I am dissolving into a rant (something I despise) so I will conclude rather quickly.

I guess this kind of behavior in a blog can be excused in that it some how allows them to safely vent and keeps them from going out and shooting their boss or beating their wife and kids...

But it certainly does not stop me from wanting to beat the shit out of them...

(Stand up...Punch the air..."I told you motherfucker!")