I

A psychologist told me recently that there is a fair amount of narcissism in being an artist. I suspect it varies from writer to writer, but I am horrified by the amount I use the first person pronoun on facebook. I'm trying to reduce the use now -- which means I cannot talk about narcissism there. One cannot talk about narcissism -- at least one's own narcissism -- without using 'I.'

However, this is my blog, and people have been warned by the name. So here we go.

Patrick spent most of his working life in human services. When you are working with people who are mentally ill or who have really difficult lives, you have to build good boundaries. Too much sympathy will harm you and make it impossible for you to help the other person. You have to remain objective, though always sympathetic, as well. So Patrick, who is a far more caring person than I am, has really good boundaries.

But if you write fiction, you need to be able to imagine what happens inside other people; and this tends to mean that your boundaries are not so good. It also means, for me, that I pull other people's experiences inside me. What would it feel like to be that person or have that experience? Has anything like that ever happened to me? What did it feel like? I pick at feelings, especially bad feelings. Why is this behavior happening, when it looks like a mistake to outsiders? How does it feel? How would it feel to me?

Patrick tells me over and over, "It isn't always about you."

He's right.

I am a poet as well as a fiction writer, and much poetry is about introspection. If I remember correctly, Shakespeare uses 'I' a lot in his sonnets. I figure most people have internal boundaries, which protect them against much that happens inside them. But a poet has to be responsive to all that shit. This, at least, is a theory.

In addition, you need a cast iron ego to be a writer. There are so many setbacks, so much rejection... This is especially true if you are writer who is not especially successful and popular. (Some writers have a style that is naturally popular. Others learn how to write popular prose. In America, no poet is popular.) The artists I knew as a kid -- some of whom turned out to be the best regarded artists of their generation -- best regarded for their art, not their human warmth -- were pretty clearly focused on themselves and their art. It was always about them and art.

Patrick just got up. I told him I was writing about narcissism on my blog, and he said, "How narcissistic of you."

The typical description of a narcissist is someone grandiose on the surface and anxious and insecure underneath. Well, a writer or artist who tries to be great is certainly grandiose; and trying to achieve greatness is going to make you insecure. You've set the bar too high. You don't have reasonable expectations.

I'm still not sure that it's right to call artists narcissistic. Personality disorders are supposed to be dysfunctional. But the personalities of artists may help them be artists.