Narcissism & Envy

These classes help you discover the mythologies of  self-objectification and the object relationships that perpetuate your suffering and self loathing. You then have an opportunity to just stop the suffering and connect with your innate nature, which is conscious, happy, free and unlimited.  Pathological envy – the second deadly sin – is a compounded emotion. It is brought on by the realization of some lack, deficiency, or inadequacy in oneself. It is the result of unfavorably comparing oneself to others: to their success, their reputation, their possessions, their luck, their qualities. It is misery and humiliation and impotent rage and a tortuous, slippery path to nowhere. The effort to break the padded walls of this self-visited purgatory often leads to attacks on the perceived source of frustration.

There is a spectrum of reactions to this pernicious and cognitively distorting emotion:

Subsuming the Object of Envy Through Imitation

Some narcissists seek to imitate or even emulate their ever changing role models. It is as if by imitating the object of his envy, the narcissist becomes that object. So, narcissists are likely to adopt their boss’ typical gestures, the vocabulary of a successful politician, the dress code of a movie star, the views of an esteemed tycoon, even the countenance
and actions of the fictitious hero of a movie or a novel.

In his pursuit of peace of mind, in his frantic effort to alleviate the burden of consuming jealousy, the narcissist often deteriorates to conspicuous and ostentatious consumption, impulsive and reckless behaviors, and substance abuse.

In extreme cases, to get rich quick through schemes of crime and corruption, to out-wit the system, to prevail, is thought by these people to be the epitome of cleverness, providing one does not get caught, the sport of living, a winked at vice, a spice.

Destroying the Frustrating Object

Other narcissists “choose” to destroy the object that gives them so much grief by provoking in them feelings of inadequacy and frustration. They display obsessive, blind animosity and engage in compulsive acts of rivalry often at the cost of self-destruction and self-isolation.

This behavior manifests in many forms. From scratching the paint of new cars and flattening their types, to spreading vicious gossip, to media-hyped arrests of successful and rich businessmen, to wars against advantaged neighbors.

The stifling, condensed vapors of envy cannot be dispersed. They invade their victims,
their rageful eyes, their calculating souls, they guide their hands in evil doings and dip
their tongues in vitriol. The envious narcissist’s existence is a constant hiss, a tangible malice, the piercing of a thousand eyes. The imminence and immanence of violence.
The poisoned joy of depriving the other of that which you don’t or cannot have.

Self-Deprecation

There are those narcissists who idealize the successful and the rich and the lucky. They
attribute to them super-human, almost divine, qualities.

In an effort to justify the agonizing disparities between themselves and others, they humble themselves as they elevate the others. They reduce and diminish their own gifts, they disparage their own achievements, they degrade their own possessions and look with disdain and contempt upon their nearest and dearest, who are unable to
discern their fundamental shortcomings. They feel worthy only of abasement and punishment. Besieged by guilt and remorse, voided of self-esteem, perpetually self- hating and self-deprecating, this is by far the more dangerous species of narcissist.

For he who derives contentment from his own humiliation cannot but derive happiness
from the downfall of others. Indeed, most of them end up driving the objects of their own devotion and adulation to destruction and decrepitude.

Cognitive Dissonance

The most common reaction is cognitive dissonance. It is to believe that the grapes are sour rather than to admit that they are craved.

These people devalue the source of their frustration and envy. They find faults, unattractive features, high costs to pay, immorality in everything they really most desire and aspire to and in everyone who has attained that which they so often can’t.

They walk amongst us, critical and self-righteous, inflated with a justice of their making and secure in the wisdom of being what they are rather than what they could have been and really wish to be. They make a virtue of virtuous abstention, of wishful constipation, of judgmental neutrality, this oxymoron, the favorite of the disabled.

Avoidance – The Schizoid Solution

And then, of course, there is avoidance. To witness the success and joy of others is too painful and too high a price to pay. So, the narcissist stays away, alone and incommunicado. He inhabits the artificial bubble that is his world where he is king and
country, law and yardstick, the one and only. The narcissist becomes the resident of his own burgeoning delusions. He is happy and soothed.

However, the narcissist must justify to himself – on those rare occasions that he does catch a glimpse of his internal turmoil – why all this hatred and why the envy. The object of envy and hatred has to be magnified, glorified, idealized, demonized or
elevated to superhuman levels to account for the narcissist’s strong negative emotions.
Outstanding qualities, skills and abilities are imputed to it and the object of these emotions is perceived to possess all the traits that the narcissist would have liked to have but doesn’t.

This is very different from the purer, healthier, forms of hate directed at an object,
which is genuinely – or is genuinely perceived to be – ominous, dangerous, or sadistic.
In this healthy reaction, the properties of the hated object are not ones the person doing
the hating would have liked to possess!

Hatred is thus used to eliminate a source of frustration, which sadistically attacks the self. Jealousy is aimed at another person, who sadistically – or provocatively – prevents the jealous self from obtaining what it desires.