There’s an older woman who lives in my neighborhood that I see on my walks. We’re not friends really- just familiar NPCs in each others lives. Walking home the other day, she was coming towards me up the sidewalk when she stopped and noticed a small stand of daffodils at the edge of a lawn. The bright yellow flowers were craned down as usual, baring the green shoulders of their stems against the rain beating on our hoods. Fat wet drops of water rain down from behind the petals before making their own small puddles on the sidewalk.

“Look at that” she said, gesturing to the flowers. “Blooming already. The daffodils don’t know it’s cold!”
Without thinking, I said “They know, ma’am- they just don’t care. They never do.”
My elderly NPC made her way up the sidewalk shaking her head, and I turned up the walk to my house. “They just wanna bloom.”

Daffodils bloom very early in the spring, often while it’s still cold and there’s snow on the ground. They also tend to grow near water but in Portland, any sidewalk can be a river if the weather is right. Their heavy craning heads look down over the water, as though they were admiring their reflection. This, along with their audacity of blooming when it’s cold, and a little myth-making merit their family the scientific name of Narcissus.

When I took a class on Abnormal Psychology for my Bachelors degree, the professor gave us a strict warning on the first day. “You will need to use the DSM for this class. DO NOT use it try and diagnose yourselves OR each other. By the end of the term, you will think you have every disorder in the book.”

Tempting as it was to pick through a book of Everything You Wanted to Know About Brainfuckery But Was Afraid to Ask, I managed to limit my appraisals of my colleagues to being at least as messed up as I was and finished the class. That first warning, however, has stuck with me- the academic psychology equivalent of Nietzsches abyss. A lack of professional credentials and the warning’s pop culture addendum The Goldwater Rule have prevented me from saying anything about individuals- be they friends, family, or public figures- beyond the terse assertions of “cretinous bastard,” “damned fool,” or most common lately, “that fucking jackass.”

When it comes to narcissism then, I found Dr. Brene Browns definition far more palatable to myself and to the non-terminally academic- “Narcissism is the shame-based fear of being ordinary.” That sounds about right to me- people who are ashamed of the possibility they could be just like everyone else, so they bail out of reality in favor of delusions where that simply can’t be the case. They are the Chosen One, and the rest of us are just set dressing and pawns in the obvious pageant to their glory, but us mere mortals just can’t seem to get out of their way.

Dr. Brown’s definition can unfortunately ALSO be used- with a little critical tweaking- to describe people who simply don’t want to die quietly. They want to live out loud, see the maximum they are capable of, and make sure they leave a mark on the world.

Those critical tweaks I mentioned are that narcissists engage in magical thinking and paranoia, imagining a world that is out to stifle them and stop their progress. The others, though, know that’s not the case. The world is not out to get them anymore than the other guy– those are just the rules of the game they are trying to succeed at, and the prize is that they get to be their true and authentic selves.

For these weirdos, there’s no shame in being ordinary, but there is something galling and unbearable for them to stay that way. They can feel a Glimmer, a fae glamour that’s just waiting for the excuse to express itself deep in their guts and to quash it would be tantamount to sterilization. Why spend their lives comfortable at 50 or 65 percent of their capacity when- for a little a little risk and challenge- they can see themselves at 100% of their inner madness and character?

Life should be taken seriously, for sure- but it’s still something to be lived and enjoyed and a game to be played. Narcissists want everyone to think that the game is just for their benefit. They can’t lose- they’re the only ones who matter. The Weirdos, meanwhile, wanna make sure everyone knows they played the game into the fucking ground. They may not be Narcissa, but they are something like daffodils because they just wanna bloom before they die.

Daffodils grow in China, but they don’t carry the baggage of Greek mythology. Instead, East Asian art has what are called “The Three Friends of Winter-” arrangements of pine, bamboo, and flowering plum. Even as the weather would turn cold and harsh, the bamboo would wave and sway in the storm winds without breaking, the pine would stay green even as all the other trees around it lost their leaves, and the plum would defiantly- audaciously- bloom even with snow on its branches.

What game is being played there? Does winter come just to try banish pine, bamboo, and plums from the earth? Of course not- this happens, and the Three Friends are just who and what they are. In Chinese culture, daffodils symbolize good fortune and prosperity during the Spring Festival. The Three Friends of Winter, however, teach the lessons of perseverance and resilience (the pine), flexibility (bamboo), hope and steadfastness (the plum blossom.) They don’t want to bloom and grow, they just do.

I have plenty of friends and associates who always seem like they’re waiting for permission to be themselves. They feel like they need to earn or justify the things that give them joy and apologize for spending time on them. They can’t help but want to bloom, but unlike daffodils willing to die in a late frost, one cold wind is enough to drive them back underground. It’s way too common, and it’s not timidity or cowardliness- it’s smart. They have learned from experience that life gets harder when you act on who you are, so it’s easier to stay quiet, small, flexible, fungible, packable, sortable, convenient.

Easier said than done, I know, but please hear me when I say FUCK THAT.

Bloom. Bend. EXIST. See everything you can be, be everything you possibly can, and die satisfied. No one survives life- daffodils go to ground when it gets cold, even if they bloom early- so you might as well take a crack at thriving. You never know who will see you from the sidewalk and decide they can handle one more day as themselves before shrinking back into what it is Easier to be.

Stay Classy,