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A Fellowship of Narcissists

A good friend whose frequent critiques have given me more ideas for blog posts than probably anyone else was at it again this weekend.

I made a joke about a mutual friend talking too much about himself. (I was busting balls. That mutual friend is really a humble guy.) To that, my friend the critic asked, “What about people who write about themselves all the time?”

Mood music:

He’s right. I do write about myself a lot. I do it for a specific purpose — using myself as a lab rat in the ongoing experiment of OCD management — but I won’t lie and tell you that I go at it from a purely humble, selfless direction. When people find my work valuable, my ego swells. Where there’s a big ego, there’s narcissism. I’m somewhat of a rare breed because I come right out and admit it. No one likes to admit they have narcissistic behavior.

My friend has a narcissistic streak as well. He posts a ton about his workouts, travels and job. That’s fine by me and everyone else, because he’s an interesting guy bringing good stuff to the table.

Many of our friends and colleagues are the same way. To varying degrees we have healthy egos and share a lot about ourselves, particularly on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Social media is a lot like Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. For us, the ring isn’t something Frodo Baggins wears around his neck. It’s the narcissism we each carry within ourselves. We are a fellowship of narcissists.

Not that I’m completely comfortable about that. I’m always trying to be a better person, and I know my sense of humility needs work. That’s what my faith tells me. That’s what my recovery program tells me.

But knowing and practicing are two different things.

It’s something I’ll keep working on. For now, I take comfort in knowing I’m not traveling this road alone.

Naturally Yours Narcissist: Savage Chickens

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Honor the Mental Sacrifice Veterans Have Made

With another Veterans Day upon us, I want to thank our servicemen and -women for a very specific sacrifice they’ve made.

Mental sacrifice is always implied when we thank our veterans for the larger sacrifice of life and limb to protect our freedom. That’s as it should be. Still, as someone who has never seen combat but has struggled with mental illness, I’m especially grateful to troops past and present for carrying the mental burden.

Mood music:

I have many friends who have served in the military and have seen combat. They’ve been shot at, lost limbs and lost buddies they served with. They suffer with depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

I wish they could have been spared all that. But I hope they can get some satisfaction and even happiness in knowing that they raised the profile of mental illness as a scourge to be confronted more than perhaps anyone else could have.

Soldiers are known for their courage, and when that courage extends to confronting mental maladies left by war, they are breaking stigmas that have held us all back.

Amid the last decade’s War on Terrorism, we saw an alarming rise in suicide among those who came home and couldn’t reconcile their former lives with where they had been and what they had seen. We saw a lot of troops struggling with depression as they came to terms with the loss of arms and legs. Many of them shared their struggles publicly and, in the process, showed us all how to move beyond adversity toward something better.

One example that sticks with me is that of U.S. Marine Clay Hunt. He survived Iraq and Afghanistan but ultimately fell to depression, taking his life in 2011 at the young age of 28.

Before he lost his battle with depression, though, he managed to help countless people suffering with the same disease. As James Dao wrote in a New York Time‘s blog post, “News of Mr. Hunt’s death has ricocheted through the veterans’ world as a grim reminder of the emotional and psychological strains of war — and of the government’s inability to stem military and veteran suicides, which have climbed steadily in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.”

Despite the ravages of PTSD, Hunt threw himself into volunteer work. Dao wrote that he built bikes for Ride 2 Recovery, a rehabilitation program for injured veterans. He journeyed to Haiti and Chile with Team Rubicon to help organize events for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) and appeared in a public service announcement encouraging veterans to seek help for mental health problems.

Despite how his life ended, I hope his friends and family know how much he did to fight the mental illness stigma.

I want to thank him and all the other veterans who have taken arms against the enemy of the mind. Peace be with you all.

atwar-clay-hunt-articleInline
Clay Hunt participating in a 2010 Florida ride with the Ride 2 Recovery veterans organization. Hunt, who was active in various public service groups, took his own life in March 2011. Photo by the Associated Press

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OC/DC

A while back I mentioned a problem I was having with my guitars, a problem only someone with OCD would have. Yesterday, a buddy shared a cartoon that illustrates another problem I could find myself dealing with if I ever decide to play live again:

OCD guitarist

Well, that wouldn’t really happen. But it made me laugh.

I think that the title should read OC/DC, however. I get the need to have O-C-D together. But it just doesn’t look right if it’s going to be a tribute to AC/DC.

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Respectful Disagreement about the Valley Patriot

In recent months, I’ve taken the editor of one of my local newspapers to task over what I’ve seen as his overeagerness to make judgement calls.

I unfollowed Tom Duggan on Facebook at one point because I was so pissed off. Duggan and I have since had a conversation, and I want to make sure everyone understands this: I stand by my earlier criticisms. But it was in no way meant as a personal attack. In fact, I have much respect for Duggan and believe he gets it right most of the time.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2itgUw0RkrEcqmMxtBzDM7]

Let’s go back a bit in time for some context.

Duggan reached out to me after I wrote this post on the case of Erin Cox, a North Andover High senior who was punished for being at a drinking party police busted up a few weeks ago. I argued that Duggan rushed to judgement when he published an article saying Cox appeared in court on drinking charges, which turned out to be untrue.

A few months before that, I blasted him for what I saw as his overeagerness in reporting the death toll of the Boston Marathon bombings. As is usually the case in the madness of collecting breaking news, Duggan received information on the death toll that turned out to be inflated. He corrected his information as it came in. But I felt — and still do — that he was in too much of a hurry to get the news first and that he should have waited for better confirmation before blasting details all over Facebook.

In both stories, Duggan believes I took him out of context, that I unfairly painted him as a rogue editor making things up and inflating details for the hell of it. He said he had no problem with criticism as long as it was fair and not based on spliced-together bits designed to paint him in an untrue light.

So let’s clarify some things:

This isn’t about splicing details together in a manner that fits the point I want to make. It’s about my reaction to his work as it unfolded on social media.

Duggan has done a lot of good around these parts. I worked at the Eagle-Tribune for nearly five years and know that the paper was in need of real competition. I was happy to see the Valley Patriot emerge as a check on my former employer. I actually think it made the Eagle-Tribune a better paper.

Duggan has a lot of heart and a passion to get it right. My problem in recent months wasn’t that he spread lies. He didn’t. It was that he got too excitable in the face of breaking news and rushed out information that needed more verification.

As someone who has been on the receiving end of criticism many times in my career, I know it’s no fun. But I have to call it as I see it.

But understand this: When I criticize Duggan, I do so with respect for all he’s done for the community.

Hat with Press tag

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Illustrating the Red Sox Nation

Yesterday I was sick all day. At one point, I watched little bits of nonsense on YouTube, waiting for my brain function and motor skills to wake up. Humor can be as good as the strongest cup of coffee on days like this.

Below is something that truly captures the special characteristics of Boston Red Sox fans. It’s a pretty good reflection of Bostonians, period. I say this with total affection. I’m not as rabid a sports fan as many in this town, but I am a product of Boston and see some of myself in this clip.

It’s a MasterCard commercial spoof, in which rabid Red Sox fans list all the precious things they’d part with if the Sox were to win the World Series, as of course they did. This actually followed the Sox’s 2004 World Series win and is making the rounds again in the wake of the team’s 2013 win.

After the win, it’s time to pay the piper, and the results are indeed “priceless.”

Denis Leary, Sox commercial