Steve Pemberton, Hannah Critchlow, Narcissism Nonsense

                                              People

Steve Pemberton, an actor, was asked: What is the worst job you’ve done?

Eccles Wakes: Ale-House Interior, 

Joseph Parry (1756-1826)

Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery 
[CC BY-NC-ND]

Collecting glasses in a Lancashire pub. Try to take a pint glass with a millimetre of foam still in it, and you get a lit cigarette on the back of your hand.

(The Guardian, 2019)

*Hannah Critchlow, a Cambridge neuroscientist, has written a book – The Science of Fate (See Books) – which examines how much of our life is predetermined at birth and to what extent we are in control of our destiny.

… “For example, anxiety, obesity, depression and addictive behaviour have all been revealed to have a quite high hereditary basis. But of course, all these behaviours may be amplified and reinforced by the decisions of our parents.”

Asked what does neuroscience tell us about how you might go about changing someone’s mind or winning an argument.

  It’s very difficult. Once you have built up a perception of the world, you will ignore any information to the contrary. Your brain is already taking up about 20% of your energy, so changing the way that you think is going to be quite cognitively costly. And it might be quite socially costly too.

(The Observer, 2019)

Being a Narcissist

Narcissus and Echo, Joseph Mallard William Turner (1775-1851) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND]

I am a narcissist and I’m only too happy to admit it. And according to a study published last week in The New York Times, so is the rest of my generation. Generation selfie. Generation social media. Generation -259 because that’s how many people have died trying to take the perfect photo of themselves. And, probably quite rightly, we’re hated for it.

…I have what Google would describe as “an excessive interest and admiration of myself”. When I look in the mirror, I like what I see. When I’m left on my own, I’m happy with the company. When you look at my Instagram feed, there’s not so much as a poached egg in sight. It’s all about me and my face.

I do look at my reflection in car windows when I walk by…I do ask my friends and family to stop what they are doing immediately to take a photograph of me (then to do it again if it wasn’t good enough the first time.

…I’m not sure that having an excessive “admiration for yourself” is the worst thing you can have. In fact, I think it may just be one of the best. Because, as well as being generation social media and selfie, we are also generation self-care, mental health-awareness and body-confident.

…And I don’t think that our narcissism makes us bad people. Having what is deemed to be an excess of self-adoration does not mean that we are riddled with vanity or that we’re conceited or self-obsessed. Subtle differences perhaps, but differences nonetheless. Maybe I’m defending narcissism to make myself feel better about a character trait that is so famously unlikeable, but maybe that’s okay.

(Emily Clarkson, The Times, 2019)

Definitely not out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. A very confused and self-centred young lady.