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The Age of Narcissism

So. Here at the outset of 2025 the new regime is settling in and we now know the direction our leader and his cohorts wish to take our society.

We know that kindness, generosity, intelligence, justice, sympathy, honesty, and a sense of humor will have no place in the governing equation. Cruelty, greed, dishonesty, and overwhelming narcissism seem to underpin most of what is afoot.

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The ascendancy of this collection of people suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder reminds me of Christopher Lasch’s remarkable book The Culture of Narcissism. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by exaggerated self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy (to name three of the primary symptoms).

Published in 1979, The Culture of Narcissism is Lasch’s chronicling of how and why narcissists became much more prevalent in the 1960s and 70s (and have since become the dominant personality type in our society.) He would continue this history with The Minimal Self published in 1984.

I read both books at the time they were published and they clarified for me what was happening culturally, socially, and politically in those days. These books also predicted with chilling accuracy much of what has subsequently transpired in our culture and society since the late 1970s.

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The Culture of Narcissism details how our society evolved from one of extended families and neighborhoods and cohesive communities into what we have today, and explains how our collective desire to contribute to the greater good of our society was supplanted by the supremacy of narcissists – people who cannot care about other people because, being the children of narcissists and raised on mass delusional messaging (TV), they lack the capacity to love anyone, including themselves, despite outward appearances to the contrary.

By the way, The Culture of Narcissism was a massive bestseller, highly controversial, and caused dozens of books and thousands of essays to be written in response to Lasch’s theories and opinions expressed in his book. And The Culture of Narcissism gained even more notoriety when President Jimmy Carter invited Lasch to come to Camp David to advise Jimmy on his famous “crisis of confidence” speech of July 15, 1979.

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Forty-six years later, the great challenge for non-narcissists in America is: how do we survive in a society ruled by such emotionally disturbed people? I suggest we revive the foundational activities of The Sixties counter culture: watching less TV (and TV-like devices), having potlucks (with singing and story telling), wearing colorful clothing and fun head-wear, displaying humorous bumper stickers, boycotting hideous corporations, celebrating small pleasures, and speaking truth to power.

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The Youngbloods singing Get Together

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Executive Orders 2025

I lay down for an afternoon nap on this cold foggy January 20th 2025 and immediately fell asleep and had a vivid dream in which I was about to be inaugurated President of the United States. Even in my dream I found this so unlikely I said to the woman I knew to be my vice-president, “Can this possibly be true? That I’m about to be inaugurated?”

“You are such a joker,” she said with her charming British accent.  “Voters love that. Not only are you President, but your first ten executive orders immediately become law without having to be passed by Congress, though since our party now holds massive majorities in both houses, that won’t pose a problem should you choose to go that route.”

“Wow,” I said, incredulously. “And could you remind me which party our party is with the super congressional majority?”

The Party,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“The Party?” I said, my confusion growing. “That’s the name of our party? The Party?”

At which moment we were hustled away by several burly security guards escorting us to the stage on the steps of the capitol building – a crowd of several million people awaiting my inaugural speech.

“Tell me your name again,” I said to my vice-president.

“Stop,” she said, giving me a warning look.

“Humor me,” I said, nodding hopefully. “I’ve got a little stage fright.”

“Desdemona Mangaroo,” she said quietly.

“Right,” I said, loving her moniker. “One last question, Desdemona. What was my campaign platform? In ten words or less.”

But before she could tell me I found myself standing at the podium gazing out at the multitudes. I had no speech prepared, nothing to read, and yet I was not so much afraid as tickled.

“Fellow earthlings,” I said, and these words caused a roar of approval from the crowd. “I stand before you today with good news. As soon as I finish making this brief speech I will sign ten executive orders that will immediately become laws of our great nation. The first order will be to institute free comprehensive universal healthcare, including dental, for all Americans, along with billions of dollars for birth control and family planning here and abroad. The second order will be the allocation of a trillion dollars to connect all our cities with high-speed rail so we can stop flying in jets and super-heating the earth.

The third order will be to reduce our military to a strong defensive force rather than maintain hundreds of bases around the world. The fourth order will be to provide funding to produce solar, wind, and wave power sufficient to make fossil fuels no longer necessary. The fifth order will be to provide ample funding for music and the arts in all our schools.

The sixth order will be to fully fund and expand the postal system so it will once again be a vibrant foundation for our communities and our democracy. The seventh order will eliminate all corporate funds from the political process and limit contributions individuals can make to a campaign to five thousand dollars, and that will include the candidates themselves. The eighth order will insure all elections henceforth will take place on Saturday and Sunday with uniform paper ballots throughout the land, and everyone who is a citizen gets to vote.

The ninth order will declare the United States will never give a dime in foreign aid to any country committing acts of aggression against another country or people. And the tenth order will grant generous tax breaks to everyone doing their utmost to insure a healthy biosphere.

Then I woke up.

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Wakeup Thinking About You from Todd’s CD Dream of You

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Communiques to the Photographer

January 8, 2025

The photographer was standing on the Mendocino headlands when he saw an angel on Portuguese Beach. The photographer said he had his eyes closed and was sending prayers to his friends in Los Angeles who were enduring the awesome fires and toxic air engulfing large swaths of that megalopolis.

“When I opened my eyes, I saw the angel walking on the beach below,” said the photographer. “I raised my camera, took the picture, and when I lowered my camera, the angel was gone.”

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January 10, 2025

The photographer saw two ravens rehearsing their act for the Celestial Ballet of Life festival running from now until the end of time in the sky over Mendocino. The ravens were taking turns resting on an ancient fence from which they drew power and inspiration.

When the ravens realized they were being watched, they launched into a spectacular performance of Movement 774 of that perennial raven favorite Making Love to the Wind Spirits. The photographer was thrown into such a tizzy of awe he only managed to snap a half-dozen pictures of the mind-boggling aerial pas de deux, most of which were blurry.

*

January 11, 2025

On the beach at the mouth of Big River at low tide, the River and the Sand Bar and the wind-whipped Breakers called to the photographer in the language of sand and waves and water.

“Hey! This would make a good picture,” they said; and the photographer agreed.

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Later that same January 11, 2025

At dusk, the photographer emerged from his house with a bucket of compost and gasped at the sight of what humans call a beautiful sunset. The photographer set down the bucket of compost and went to fetch his camera.

And just a few seconds after the photographer took a picture of the enchanting scene, the pink clouds turned gray and a raven flew by crying, “Carpe diem! Carpe diem!”

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Ahora Entras Tu from Todd’s CD Ahora Entras Tu.

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Gently With Love

This morning, January 6, 2025, after a stint of writing and a bowl of granola and a bit of piano playing, I set off for town in our little red Prius to shop at Corners of the Mouth, a small yet splendiferous worker-owned grocery store occupying an old two-story former church in downtown Mendocino.

We live a mile from town. When I used to write for a regional publication with a much larger readership than my blog, I referred to Mendocino as “a village” on a few occasions and several readers took umbrage with my use of the noun village. They complained that Mendocino was not a village, but a town. Nor, they said, was Mendocino a hamlet. My use of the word village, they opined, was proof of both my ignorance and my annoying (to them) tendency to needlessly romanticize life.

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Now this mile we live from town goes downhill on two-lane Little Lake Road all the way to the village and therefore climbs uphill all the way home. I drive this mile at about thirty-miles-per-hour on the downhill, except in the school zone wherein I go twenty-five. By local standards this is quite slow, though the road passes close by many houses and I feel it is courteous and safer to drive at non-freeway speeds here.

Alas, the fellow who got behind me this morning on my way to town felt my notions of safety and courtesy were bollocks, and he let me know this all the way to the village.

I don’t know who the fellow was. I didn’t actually see him because the windshield of his enormous pickup truck was tinted gray verging on black. This monstrous vehicle, easily five times bigger than our little Prius, was black and had a rumbling engine that got (I’m guessing) seven-miles-per-gallon on a good day. The impatient fellow (I assumed the driver was a fellow, though I suppose he/she/they might have been a woman or a trans person) got right on my bumper and revved his/her/their humongous engine at me all the way down the hill, with the occasional loud beep thrown in to startle me, thus rendering the one-minute trip to the coast highway most stressful for little old me.

Normally when I am accosted automotively by such misguided persons, I pull over and let the bullies pass. But this morning the usual pull-over places were occupied.

So. After those sixty arduous seconds of downhill racing, I reached the stoplight at Highway One (the only stoplight in Mendocino) and the light was red. So I stopped, as is the custom, with the huge black demon breathing down my neck, and when the light changed in my favor I started across the intersection only to have the behemoth close to within inches of my rear bumper with horn bellowing, as if the driver expected me to pull off into a ditch or crash into the brambles rather than hold him up for another second.

Finally, he/she/they turned left before we reached the diminutive commercial district of our hamlet, and I breathed a sigh of relief to be done with the unhappy soul.

However, the unhappy soul wasn’t done with me. He/she/they had only turned off Little Lake Road in order to race down narrow side streets in hope of beating me to the one and only main intersection in our berg. But I got there first, turned right, and the giant truck shot through the intersection and nearly plowed into my rear before he/she/they swerved into the bank parking lot and left me alone to go another hundred feet where I parked in my customary spot across the street from Corners.

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Unnerved by my encounter with the dangerous dolt, I walked to the post office, mailed a letter, got our mail, and returned to the Prius where I left the mail, grabbed my two baskets, and crossed the street to Corners — the village peaceful and calm in the absence of the legions of visitors who descend upon the village most days of the year now.

In Corners, I found the shelves overflowing and the worker-owners their usual friendly delightful beautiful selves. I was about to bring my brimming baskets to the counter when I noticed the man behind me was only buying two items – an avocado and a little container of quinoa salad – and I suggested he go ahead of me.

He acted as if I had just given him the gift of eternal life and happiness, so profuse was his thanks. Moved by his gratitude, I mentioned there were both ripe sale Avocados and not-so-ripe regular-priced avocados and he said, “I know. Thank you.”

Then as he was being rung up, he turned to me and said proudly, “I grew up surrounded by avocado trees.”

“In Santa Barbara?” I guessed.

“No further south,” he said, his pride seeming to grow. “My great grandparents planted the very first Haas avocado trees in southern California. So I know my avocados.”

“Wow,” I said. “How wonderful. In my opinion there is nothing so good as a perfectly ripe Haas avocado.”

He nodded knowingly. “But I’ll tell you. In Harvest (our hamlet’s BIG grocery store) many of the avocados have deep thumb prints in them from idiots testing them for ripeness and ruining them.”

“I would never do that,” I said, horrified by the thought of such behavior. “I heft them gently, but never press on them.”

The man lowered his voice and confided, “My grandfather used to say, ‘You want to touch an avocado as you would a woman’s breast. Gently and with love.’”

“Got that right,” said the checker, grinning at me.

And I thought, Is this the greatest grocery store in the world, or what?

*

Driving home, no one behind me, I cruised along at a delightful fifteen-miles-per-hour and arrived home in a marvelous mood, eager to make a big bowl of guacamole.

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Sometimes It Seems from Todd’s CD Lounge Act In Heaven