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Marts 22., 2015
![[info]](http://klab.lv/img/userinfo.gif) honeybee | 18:37
"When Narcissus was born his mother, Liriope, took him to the blind seer Tiresias and asked him for a prophecy: "will he have a long life?"
Before Tiresias became a prophet he had spent seven confusing years as a woman, and made two important discoveries about women. First, that women get more pleasure from love making than men. When he told this discovery to Hera and Zeus, Hera, in a rage, struck him blind, which lead to his second discovery: not all women want to hear this.
Zeus tried to make up for his blindness by giving him the power to know the future.
So Tiresias gave Liriope his cryptic prophecy:
"He'll have a long life as long as he never knows himself."
[..]
You think Narcissus was so in love with himself that he couldn't love anyone else. But that's not what happened, the story clearly tells it in the reverse: he never loved anyone and then he fell in love with himself. Do you see? Because he never loved anyone, he fell in love with himself. That was Narcissus's punishment.
You thought Narcissus rejected all those people because he was in love with himself, but he rejected them all before he loved himself. Loved himself? Do you think Narcissus rejected them because he thought he was better than them? Or better looking? How would he have known he was so beautiful? He didn't even recognize his own reflection! He rejected all those people because they loved him.
[..]
How is it that centuries later, Tiresias's prophecy is still not understood?
Tiresias's prophecy was: He will have a long life, if he never knows himself.
Now, what could that mean?
Oh, he was right: Narcissus did live a long life-- though not a happy one. He spent his life alone, dreaming, and gazing into a pool, waiting to die.
But Tiresisias's prophecy seems... wrong, counter to the Greek spirit, an affront to logic; shouldn't "knowing thyself" be the highest virtue?
He will have a long life, if he never knows himself.
But it's so simple, the explanation. It's so simple that no one has ever thought of it, and the reason no one has thought of it is that it is too terrible to think about.
Forget about whether the prophecy is true. Ask instead, "what would the parents have done once they heard it?"
When Laius and Jocasta were told that Oedipus would eventually destroy them, they pinned his ankles and abandoned him in the woods, ensuring that he'd someday have cause to do it. And so when Narcissus's parents heard the requirements for their child's long life... they would have done everything possible to ensure that he didn't know himself.
No one knows what Liriope and Cephisus did, but whatever they did, it worked: he didn't even recognize his own reflection. That's a man who doesn't know himself. That's a man who never had to look at himself from the outside."
The Second story of Echo and Narcissus
(jā, es šito pārlasu un pārlasu dažādās stadijās, dažādos kontekstos.)
Un vēl šis:
"Do you really admire Tony Soprano? Which part? His loveless marriage to a crazy person? A mistress who is even crazier? His gigantic belly and panic attacks? The fact that no one actually likes him? That his daughter was dating a black guy? ("I wouldn't have a problem with that." Yes you would if you were Tony.) What part do you admire?
The answer you tell yourself is you admire his power, that he can do whatever he wants. No he can't. The whole show was nothing but repeated examples of how limited his options were. The things you think you admire-- having hot sex with the other crazy woman at his psychiatrist's office, eating microwaved Sysco at Italian restaurants, avoiding his wife-- can be done by anyone, you don't need to be Tony to do it. But when you do it.... it just doesn't feel the same. I know.
What people admire about Tony isn't his freedom; that thing you think is freedom is actually the lack of freedom. His story. His identity-- that he has one, an obvious one, a clear one. Tony Soprano is not free, his behavior is completely tethered to what makes sense for his character. He acts exactly like Tony Soprano would act. That's what people want: the limitations of that identity: if I know who I am, I know what I am capable of, I know my strengths and my limits, I know how I'd react to unknown dangers. And I want other people to know this. If other people know who I am, I wouldn't have to keep proving myself. Strike that: I wouldn't have to prove myself in the first place."
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/04/why_we_love_sociopaths.html#more
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