The Discontinuous Narcissist

The following videos are discussions about “personality disorders”. I have posted them here for the purpose of sharing information about personality types. Do not become identified with and allow yourself to be taken by what you see and hear. Many personality types share many of the same manifestations and habitual ways of being. If what is shared touches a nerve, or starts associations in you, remain centered in yourself. Become aware of your breathing and the soles of the feet on the ground to help you to remain focused while watching and listening. ;-) L.

Sam Vaknin: narcissist, author: Malignant Self Love

The Compulsive Giver

“Every man has a certain feature in his character which is central. It is like an axle round which all his ‘false personality’ revolves. Every man’s personal work must consist in struggling against this chief fault.” – George Gurdjieff (as quoted by Peter Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p.233)

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Disclaimer:  Mr Vaknin is not associated with nor recommended as an authority by the myself or =, as far I I am aware, by any Gurdjieff group.

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"Some narcissists are ostentatiously generous -- they donate to charity, lavish gifts on their closest, abundantly provide for their nearest and dearest, and, in general, are open-handed and unstintingly benevolent. How can this be reconciled with the pronounced lack of empathy and with the pernicious self-preoccupation that is so typical of narcissists? The act of giving enhances the narcissist's sense of omnipotence, his fantastic grandiosity, and the contempt he holds for others. It is easy to feel superior to the supplicating recipients of one's largesse. Narcissistic altruism is about exerting control and maintaining it by fostering dependence in the beneficiaries. (From the book "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited" by Sam Vaknin)

LOVE

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” ~ Mother Teresa

MISUNDERSTANDING

ISOTM: Table of Contents: Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV

General impressions of G.'s system. Looking backwards. One of the fundamental propositions. The line of knowledge and the line of being. Being on different levels Divergence of the line of knowledge from the line of being. What a development of knowledge gives without a corresponding change of being—and a change of being without an increase in knowledge. What "understanding" means. Understanding as the resultant of knowledge and being. The difference between understanding and knowledge. Understanding as a function of three centers. Why people try to find names for things they do not understand. Our language. Why people do not understand one another. ...

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“In almost every one of his lectures G. reverted to a theme which he evidently considered to be of the utmost importance but which was very difficult for many of us to assimilate. 

"There are," he said, "two lines along which man's development proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of being. In right evolution the line of knowledge and the line of being develop simultaneously, parallel to, and helping one another. But if the line of knowledge gets too far ahead of the line of being, or if the line of being gets ahead of the line of knowledge, man's development goes wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill . ...”