There are two breeds in times like these:
The Selfish and the Selfless.
The Selfless shall put others' needs before one's own.
The Selfish shall prioritize himself, even above his friends, his partners, and his kin.
Among the Selfish, there are those who seek to change or leastwise temper their own appetites.
Yet then there is the Narcissist: the shameless egoist who stabs his fellows in the back and salts their wounds with his own debt of blame.
The Selfish and the Selfless coexist, yet always by a parasitic symbiosis, wherein Selfless heroes are the hosts upon whom Selfish leeches feast.
The Selfish leeches learn, by avenue of Selfless love, the power of the Altruistic Way, and so they are converted over time.
Yet Narcissists, believing only in themselves, would gladly take the offerings of Selfless heroes as their own entitlement, for such a gift remains consistent with the Narcissist's objectives, and in the total absence of a Selfless impulse it is easy to assume that Selfless heroes are but Selfish villains in disguise, pretending to be Selfless but to earn their way by means of debt and preaching.
How misguided is the Narcissist!! For he knows only fleeting satisfaction by his own device, in service to that self which he himself destroys, and he is cloistered by his passions from the warmth and freedom of an Altruistic Grace. He subsists upon the kindness which he never can reciprocate in full, with heart, and he perpetually lands upon the tarp of faith which he does not deserve, for never in his falling can he stand and be a pillar to suspend that tarp.
When finally his fall is much too great, his knife too sharp, his treachery so cutting that the tarp no longer holds, his Selfless friends abandon him, for he was never Selfless friend to them. Yet in so far as he remains a beacon and a comfort for his Selfish partners, they seek to redeem him, seeking out the Selfless friends and urging them to waste their generosity again upon the Narcissist. Yet when this too falls through, the Selfless friends, enraged, demand that, for one moment, such a Narcissist would put THEIR needs before himself, just once reciprocating all their sacrifice on his behalf.
Yet in this moment Narcissism drives its final nail into the coffin of the Friendship. By displacing blame upon the Selfless hero, any Narcissist makes his escape with ease. Who is that self-important "altruist" to conquer my autonomy, demanding that I give my birth-right to accommodate his wants and needs? Is he not the antithesis of everything which he professes? Is he not the Narcissist whom he condemns?
No, not at all, for what he asks is but the proper due for what he's always given unto you, and, even in that moment, he is serving those around him, in the feeble hope that, for your sake as well as theirs, you will improve and thus atone.
[({.R.G)}]
