The paradoxes of narcissism and humility

Insight is the key to the journey of life, but insight also has a shadow—something that looks like insight but is not insight at all.

When I talk about insight, I mean one’s ability to see truth in one’s own life. Enter the paradox, or one of them at least. The one who prides him or herself on majestic levels of insight, ‘special’ insight, like insight as a God-given-gift, I have found is commonly most deluded. Yet the one who struggles for insight—and most importantly knows it—like they want more insight because the little they have is but a taste of what’s available—is the one embedded most in truth.

Narcissism and humility are opposite ends of a continuum of truth—narcissism at the end of delusion and humility grounded at the other end in truth.

Another thing about these two: the one with humility is given to wondering if they could be narcissistic—they transact with any evidence of pride in themselves and are very well able to transact with the Holy Spirit’s rebuke, even if it’s distinctly uncomfortable—and it always is; not that God makes it ugly, our own pride does. The narcissistic one, on the other hand, has absolutely no interest in transacting with their pride—they cannot and will not see it. In their thoughts there is NO pride. They’re ‘the humblest of all persons’! Heaven help anyone who is the spiritual director of one such person. They cannot be counselled on their pride, and they cannot stomach the idea that their heart covets idols like all our hearts do. Remember this one feels they are special—that they have transcended this kind of ‘sin’. 

The person given to humility knows how prevalent the idols of their heart are, they see the need to rely fully on God, and their focus is piqued on any sign they’re acting entitled, on signs they might exploit others, and signs they lack empathy. Each of these failures—entitlement, exploitation and empathy—they consider heinous. They repent of these with haste; it’s what makes them humble. They have a genuine interest in being humble—their past deeds of humility they do not rest on.

The person who can bear the thought that they’re occasionally narcissistic (we all are, not that that makes us narcissists!) recognises their capacity to lose insight. They can see that when there is a loss of insight there is a seriously negative dipolar effect—more spiritual vulnerability because of less spiritual insight means more spiritual danger to others.

The genuinely humble person would always prefer to bear suffering than to provoke it in another person. The direct opposite is true for the narcissist—they’re incapable of suffering for another person, especially in secret. They would only do that if they were assured to be covered in glory. And yet the cleverest narcissist does their ‘selfless’ acts in a veiled secrecy—it looks the most altruistic of actions, but it’s a con. The humble person seeks no reward, and the humblest people actually shun rewards unless to do that would hurt people.

The humble person works hard yet the narcissist looks to make a glorious living. The former has success, like the biblical ant in Proverbs 6. The narcissist is the sluggard, also from Proverbs 6. The humble person is quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry (James 1:19), but the narcissist is easily enraged, and watch out when they’re so enraged as to ‘calm’ their abuse in a cruel display of logic.

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The person who can be called a narcissist, who can genuinely explore if they are or not, probably isn’t. But the person who cannot believe they’ve been called narcissistic probably is.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash