Lately, that phrase has been echoing in the back of my mind.
“Narcissistic America…”
And sometimes, it varies and I think, “Narcissistic me…”
And I go back and forth between the two and ponder their significance. I really don’t want to be part of what has become increasingly apparent to me each year I get older, which is that the world is in love with itself. I always knew it before, but I’ve only recently acknowledged this fact in the last six months or so. I think America especially loves itself because I live here and every American is on MySpace, people are constantly comparing themselves to everyone else and no one is satisfied because everyone is in love with themselves. And I’m no better, because I have this blog and this other blog (both of which I love) and I also have a MySpace and I look forward to comments, because I enjoy being validated and knowing that people find me interesting enough to read and I compare myself to other bloggers and think about how I can be better, funnier, more entertaining, and sometimes even prettier… And then I feel pathetic and unoriginal because just like everyone else in this country, I have this desperate need to be praised and liked by other people. And then I think about Donald Miller and everything I’ve read of his and how I think it’d be amazing to write books like the ones he’s written (comparing myself again) and how he talks about Adam and Eve when the only validation they ever desired came from God before they ate the apple.
And even though I’ve admitted to all of this, I still want to drive to Nashville to hear Donald Miller speak on April 2nd and attempt to meet him afterwards to tell him something so profound that it will make him want to know me, so that he would want to be my friend, so that perhaps, in the future, we could sit down together over tea and chocolate grahams to discuss collaborating together on a new book because I want him to think that I would be a brilliant co-author… I admit, I desire the validation of Donald Miller.
I am “Narcissistic America.”
