Here is the format I will follow in my threads. I will start out with a long, exploratory post on a topic, and I want you guys to attack, or build on to my theories. The objective is to build a communal attitude towards a topic that appreciates both the complexity and simplicity of the map I am using to bring my reality to you. I will take a stance that I know the majority of people here would disagree strongly with, and debate that point to build complexity of attitude.

I will then summarize the basic points and attempt to come to some conclusions about the whole deal, thus simplifying it to the point where we can all benefit.

Today's debate, ego.

I feel that ego is a thing that people have a huge problem with, unneccesarily. It is one of the first and loudest complaints I get when venturing into a new forum. I find all these complaints boring and uncontributory, detracting from the flow and constructive effort of the forum in general.

More to the point, I find that the people who complain the most about another's ego are those who have the most of it themselves. They feel threatened by the rival ego, and feel the need to deflate him.

This leads to needless flame wars and ruffled feelings, and little constructive effort. I personally see little difference between self-confidence and egoism, and believe there to be no difference at all. I think the proper method to deal with it is to completely ignore the egotistical statements, and focus instead of the merits of what that person has to say, until one can properly appreciate egoism and what it does for people.

I think egoism is a natural and healthy attitude in people, one to be encouraged. If it cannot be encouraged, it should at least be ignored. We all need to have our self-esteems stroked, and giving positive reactions instead of negative ones goes a long way towards building community and trust.

Witness the anime series Naruto, where any degree of egoism is expected and encouraged of the ninjas that populate Konoha. Yet Konoha is one of the most tightly knit communities you can find, bound by idealogy and comaradarie.

Surely you cannot read the writings of Maddox or Tucker Max and not have some sense of awe at their self-proclaimed awesomeness. They are awesome, whether we wish to acknowledge that or not, both having been able to amass a horde of people just waiting for their next piece.

If you have issues with arguments, please feel free to point out where and how you think they are wrong. But keep any purely reactionary arguments in your head for a little while before you air them out, will you? It will mean less wasted time for me and the rest of the group as I won't have to answer your pointless and non-constructive assertions.

Originally posted by Napsterbater
I think egoism is a natural and healthy attitude in people, one to be encouraged.

Why?

If it cannot be encouraged, it should at least be ignored.

If one were to ignore all the egoism in your post, there would be few words left to debate.

We all need to have our self-esteems stroked, and giving positive reactions instead of negative ones goes a long way towards building community and trust.

That rather contradicts this statement:

I feel that ego is a thing that people have a huge problem with, unneccesarily. It is one of the first and loudest complaints I get when venturing into a new forum. I find all these complaints boring and uncontributory, detracting from the flow and constructive effort of the forum in general

Which is it?


Witness the anime series Naruto, where any degree of egoism is expected and encouraged of the ninjas that populate Konoha. Yet Konoha is one of the most tightly knit communities you can find, bound by idealogy and comaradarie.

It's fictional.


If you have issues with arguments, please feel free to point out where and how you think they are wrong.

Don't worry...I'm sure people will. :)

I think it is healthy because it encourages people to actually do things in their lives, not just constantly keep re-examining themselves to find traces of ego they might not have eliminated.

Ego is what you are. It is that watcher inside the head that makes decisions and keeps you alive. Unfortunately, in this perverted society we live in, that got changed into meaning any thoughts or emotions a person has about himself, with the exception of self-hate. Self-hate is the only acceptable emotion that it is socially acceptable to have. Well, self-hate is unhealthy, so by definition anything that isn't self-hate is healthy, meaning egoism is healthy, but not socially acceptable. Also, Everybody here is guilty of egoism in one form or another. I don't even have to point it out, because Americans are some of the most egotistical people around. Yet we cannot admit to ourselves that we even have them. Ego is not an unhealthy state of mind, foolishly claiming to not have one is.

Wrong. In every post, I be sure to make arguments so that others have something else to go on. I refuse to repost them all simply for the people who somehow cannot read past my egoism.

I fail to see the contradiction. Instead of having my arguments argued against, I had my ego argued against, therefore constructing nothing. People here insisted on battering my self-esteem,without even touching my arguments. That is an unconstructive attitude and goes nowhere.

And so what if it is fictional? So many works of fiction are useful to us. Fiction depicts an idealized version of a society. A version we can work towards. I saw a comment in the Morons.org boards the other day that said, "Yet another reason science fiction authors should be running the planet." You think because 1984 was fictional it wasn't useful?

And, I'm sorry, but most people will not even touch my arguments. They cannot find them. If they could find them, they would find that I'm not really arguing at all, just acting in a constructive manner to benefit the rest of you.

As much as this attitude I am taking on this board right now (it keeps me from getting bored) seems confrontational, it isn't. The attitude is, the content is not. The content is collaborative and very socially useful. I am training you guys to be able to read through a messages packaging and see the gold underneath it, ignoring your petty emotional responses.

I am also trying to get you to see that you operate in the same way. You are just as egotistical inside, you just won't admit it to yourself. That dichotomy is what is keeping your mind from being flexible enough to think properly. The very demand on your psyche to be unselfish and unegoistic is keeping you egoistic and selfish. I am talking about you in the figurative sense.

Just drop the whole game. I claim to be selfish and egoistic, but that is only because you people think I am. So I go on and agree with you and say, so what? Nobody's getting hurt, and some people are amused by egoism. Why deny them the pleasure? In reality, I don't even see egoism or the lack of it as a positive or negative thing. The same goes for selflessness. In my observation, the most selfish people out there are same people that try to be selfless. My own maxim is that anybody who demands others to be selfless is the most selfish human being out there. I learned that from my father, who was the one demanding selflessness. Parent and child relations can wait for another rant.

Originally posted by Napsterbater
I feel that ego is a thing that people have a huge problem with, unneccesarily. It is one of the first and loudest complaints I get when venturing into a new forum. I find all these complaints boring and uncontributory, detracting from the flow and constructive effort of the forum in general.


hmmmm interesting, doesn't this tell you something about yourself?


More to the point, I find that the people who complain the most about another's ego are those who have the most of it themselves. They feel threatened by the rival ego, and feel the need to deflate him.

I have to disagree with this, when a person writes and compares themself with Jesus or some other perfect being it is annoying as heck for those of us that like to debate.

This leads to needless flame wars and ruffled feelings, and little constructive effort. I personally see little difference between self-confidence and egoism, and believe there to be no difference at all. I think the proper method to deal with it is to completely ignore the egotistical statements, and focus instead of the merits of what that person has to say, until one can properly appreciate egoism and what it does for people.

I would have to agree with Vile on this one if we ignored your ego there would be few things left to read

I think egoism is a natural and healthy attitude in people, one to be encouraged. If it cannot be encouraged, it should at least be ignored. We all need to have our self-esteems stroked, and giving positive reactions instead of negative ones goes a long way towards building community and trust.

so should we encourage it or ignore it?

Witness the anime series Naruto, where any degree of egoism is expected and encouraged of the ninjas that populate Konoha. Yet Konoha is one of the most tightly knit communities you can find, bound by idealogy and comaradarie.

You come off as a smart person but then you use commics and fairytails to support your thoughts, why?

Originally posted by Napsterbater
I am training you guys to be able to read through a messages packaging and see the gold underneath it, ignoring your petty emotional responses.

I am also trying to get you to see that you operate in the same way. You are just as egotistical inside, you just won't admit it to yourself. That dichotomy is what is keeping your mind from being flexible enough to think properly. The very demand on your psyche to be unselfish and unegoistic is keeping you egoistic and selfish. I am talking about you in the figurative sense.

All the same, your taking this postion of power and assuming your words are somehow better than ours and that they will lead us to some sort of intellectual enlightment.

There is another poster on these boards with a similiar agenda and whilst your not as extreme as he is. (not classifying yourself as a 2000 year old messiah and the like) you are displaying very similiar behaviour.

Can you at least see from our perspective your being narssisitic.

Well, mad dog, you can just sit there and disagree, but until you start giving arguments, I can't answer them, now can I?

You should either ignore it or encourage it, whichever you feel like doing. If you ignore it, you will at least not be discouraging it.

I use comics and fairy-tales because the creative amongst us also have the most and bestest insights. They show us aspects of ourselves we don't care to look at, in a funny and non-threatening way. The modern American sitcom is full of philisophical insights and lessons for those that care to look. All creative work is useful like that in some way.

Loki, that is exactly what I am doing. I know for a fact that they will indeed lead to intellectual enlightenment.

The thing about the messiahs and the enlightened people is that they are no different from you or me. Jesus wasn't perfect, nor did he do any of that crap they say in the bible. That was all figurative language. I learned that when I read the Mustard Seed.

So, somebody claiming to be like Jesus isn't narcissism, its pointing out that there really wasn't anything special about Jesus. He was just a man with a message. Someone who understood, trying to bring his understanding to the rest of the world. We are all little Jesuses. We all bring our understandings to the world, the understandings we were born with.

It is our duty to combine those understandings and come up with a total sum understanding. We then take action to promote that understanding in the real world.

The job of somebody like Jesus, or me, or anybody who cares to take up the cause, is to spread that word, that we are the only people that truly matter. To work for ourselves and for the benefit of mankind. That they are one in the same. To use our talents, to impress upon people that we have something important to communicate.

We were all born with them, we can all use them. A Jesus's job is to create more like him, people with the flexibility of mind to tackle any of lifes petty problems and rise above the shit to build something that will truly last. A Jesus doesn't even see competition, he sees endless needless suffering. He is patient and forgiving. Anybody with these qualities is a Jesus. It has nothing to do with narcissism.

Originally posted by Napsterbater
Here is the format I will follow in my threads. I will start out with a long, exploratory post on a topic, and I want you guys to attack, or build on to my theories.

Well, you don't always get what you want.

Ahh, see thats where you are wrong.

I am indicating what I will do. You will do that because your egos will allow no less. Then I will take all that and make a conclusion with it. I am in the position of power, because I know the dynamics of these things, whereas all you can do is whine about how I cannot control the flow, while I am doing it the whole time, under your nose.

Wherever you go, you will find one person who understands what he is doing, and a lot of people who don't, and who merely reacts to what the understanding person is doing. Understanding is power, and I am attempting to bring it to you, so that you might control things as you see fit just like I do. Then everybody controls, because everybody understands, and everybody gets what they want, because nobody has unrealistic wants.

Control is a delicate balance of knowing what you can influence, and what you cannot.

Napsterbater, your post is interesting and has wonderful possibilities for discussion, but your presentation leaves much to be desired. One must understand that most people are threatened by someone who has a strong ego. You stated:

I find that the people who complain the most about another's ego are those who have the most of it themselves.

I have to disagree with this, I find that people who complain the most about another's ego are the ones who try to project that they are great but do not truly believe it inside. Thus they are threatened by those that not only project it but follow through with the internal belief.

This theory explains your statement:

I feel that ego is a thing that people have a huge problem with, unnecessarily. It is one of the first and loudest complaints I get when venturing into a new forum. I find all these complaints boring and uncontributory, detracting from the flow and constructive effort of the forum in general.

Their response is to your presentation. I.e. I have a huge ego, I know I am great. However coming across thus to people one is trying to discuss ego with will detract the discussion from the actual subject of ego in general to comments about my ego. People are threatened by someone who can comfortably state that they know they are great. They become defensive because deap down inside they do not feel that way about themselves and thus feel put down or demeaned. When people go on the defensive, as they did with your statement, they loose objectiveness. Threatened people are not rational.

Originally posted by Napsterbater
More to the point, I find that the people who complain the most about another's ego are those who have the most of it themselves. Quite.
Originally posted by Napsterbater
I find all these complaints boring and uncontributory, detracting from the flow and constructive effort of the forum in general.
I don't. Fly-by comments, put downs and sarcasm are part of the fun here at allforums. When you are here a while you realise that there's often a mutual affection beneath the insult swapping. There are people here I disagree with vehemently. We insult each other one day and share a joke the next. It's a lively forum. I come here to be serious; and to be silly. I come here to offer support; and to take my frustrations out on others.

Your vision of well thought out posts only sounds a little sanitised for our tastes.

Welcome napsterbater. Please get to know us. If you feel the forum suits you then hang around some more. But please don't barge in thinking we are all desperate for revolutionary change.

I also have to agree with blob. This forum is very lively and half of the fun is the arguing and the insulting. We agree, we disagree and we sometimes get mad, but it is all done with an underlying affection.

Sanitized strings are boring. Unpredictability is chalanging

Again, complaining about the presentation, and not the message. If you found a diamond lying on the ground, would you hesitate to pick it up if it is covered in dog shit?

No, the presentation is part of the message. Sitting around blindly talking about ego without having some examples to go by is no way to have a rational discussion. I believe what I believe, and I will walk the talk and talk the walk. I can't sit here and say that ego is a great thing if I am sitting on my hands like a pussy, worrying whether you guys will bitch about my "presentation".

Your second finding aligns with my thinking, and is in no conflict with it. They have the ego, yet they don't truly believe it themselves. My effort is to get people to realize they have the ego, and eliminate the dichotomy that says that the ego is a bad thing. Then they can start truly believing in themselves and stop whining about other's egos.

And the threat is all a part of the message. I threaten them purposefully, to make them confront what they think is threatening, their egos. My words have the eventual effect of forcing people to take a long hard look at themselves. Some people cannot do this, so they react and bitch. I stay with them, and keep confronting them with my understanding, until they are forced to accept that I am right. Well, if I am in good form anyway. I don't simply bitch and run away without backing myself up. It is a focused effort, one that relys on my ability to keep a debate on topic and focus on what I am trying to prove.

Thanks, Blob. But thats exactly what I did, and what I will keep on doing. I think this entire world needs a revolutionary change. And I will prove it, for as long as I am able, using my force of being and flexible mind.

I cam here, in the beginning, for pure amusement. Look what that turned into. I had no desire to help others, just to help myself come to grips with my understandings and my narcissism. They came hand in hand. Fate conspires to some weird situations, let me tell you.

What's with your obsession of egoism, anyway?

Jeez, can't you read?

I love your sig, by the way.

I act obsessed with the ego, but only to show to you that you are just as obsessed, subconciously. Which is why the first thing people take issue with is that very egoism. My first couple of posts I was making without any attitude towards egoism. I just let myself go and post whatever I wanted. When you all bitched, I decided to take a stand. After I get bored with it, I'll move on. But egoism is so deliciously unboring, I doubt I will ever stop acting like I am. It gets peoples' skirts up.

Originally posted by Napsterbater
I think it is healthy because it encourages people to actually do things in their lives, not just constantly keep re-examining themselves to find traces of ego they might not have eliminated.


True.Ego is what you are. It is that watcher inside the head that makes decisions and keeps you alive.
True again.
Unfortunately, in this perverted society we live in, that got changed into meaning any thoughts or emotions a person has about himself, with the exception of self-hate. Self-hate is the only acceptable emotion that it is socially acceptable to have.

Untrue. Until one learns to have healthy self love and care about oneself one can not love or care for another without setting off boundary issues.

As a society today there is so much overblown ego that people think they have a "right" to be rude and mannerless and in fact that it is desirable behavior.. And therein lies the ego problem.

There is healthy ego and then there is overblown.

Healthy ego means a respect for oneself and knowing where one's own "self" ends and another begins. It means ability to respect another's space. An ability to be in the world and connect or not as desired without belittling another.

Overblown means "hey look at me"...I am wonderful, I am above you, I see things you do not and that makes me more "valuable" as an individual, better than you. "Look up here..here I am".

Now if one has no desire to connect to his/her fellow man, there is nothing wrong with that attitude either. As long as one wishes to remain apart and/or be disliked and/or misunderstood. It's all rather relative to the response one desires isn't it?

It is true, healthy self-love is important when it comes to loving another. I think a certain degree of narcissism is healthy and helps relationships. It keeps people from being too attached and clingy to one another and it.

And the difference between healthy ego and overblown ego is just where I am getting at. Too many people get on their PC soapbox and bitch about narcissism. It would be enough to make a person think that any amount of narcissism is unhealthy, when in fact the opposite is true. Any person of confidence is going to come off as narcissistic to some. I have friends who don't think I am egotistical at all, and would argue for the opposite case.

I say that narcissism helps in many social situations. The hip-hop culture could arguably be said to be built on it. Witness all the "I'm so bad-ass" raps you hear. Those guys are respected by lots of people, and many make lots of money. Overblown ego? Not at all. It is useful. Egoism is how the popular kids in high school get that way. Its how you get a job. Ever write a resume and look at it thinking, "who do I think I am fooling?"

First of all. When replying to something specifically, quote the damn thing. Without doing that your posts are confusing to read and it's also just really annoying.
Secondly, in order for a true debate to take place the speaker's ethos must be defined. You're asking to have a real, formated debate on a forum with people untrained in such matters, and then you turn around and blow that idea out of the water with poor structure and a serious issue with arrogance. Your ego is overblown. This is a new forum for you and you start with arrogant declarations and deliberately start arguments that place you in a very bad light. You're here and debating, yet you have yet to show us in any way that you can be an authority in anything, including yourself. Now, I am in no way trying to tell you to leave or that you don't fit in here at all, however you entered a community and done nothing but talk about yourself.
Note: This is about as serious as you'll ever see me.


Witness all the "I'm so bad-ass" raps you hear. Those guys are respected by lots of people, and many make lots of money.
Respected by those with an IQ of three. Respected by those who are complete losers and who must look to and follow others in order to fulfil themselves. I don't understand how so-called "respect" from lower order primates and wads of cash from those same "people" could possibly make a certain person a valid example for how good sickening egoism is.

I happen to think that narcissm is perfectly fine. Within reason. Egoism is only valid if you can back up your arrogant demeanour with something of value. I'm a decent programmer for having only known how to do such for about two and a half years now, however I would never think what little I know now could land me a job anywhere. Methinks that you're the type of person who would flaunt such basic knowledge as being better than it is.

I prefer to not reply to anything in particular and reply en masse to all arguments directed my way at one, it saves a lot of cutting and pasting, and allows me to be more free-form in my writing. I write better when it is free-form.

I am not trying to have a real formatted debate. I am attempting a collaborative effort with me as the catalyst for a discussion. I never bothered with formal rules in school, and I won't here. I am just making my intentions clear. Deal, OK?

I actually couldn't care less about how much Blibblob from allforums.net thinks I'm arrogant. I have my own ideas on arrogance and egoism and I am attempting to share them. If you do not wish to play, then don't. Others have expressed interest in what I am doing, and I persist for that reason.

I need not show anybody how much of an authority I am. Socrates was an authority on nothing, all he did was sit around and talk. But he was a mental giant, and nobody could deny that. I need speak on no ones authority but my own, nor do I have any obligation to prove myself before speaking my truth. The words stand by themselves, and I would prefer that you attack them instead of the man delivering them. You should know the follies of ad hominem, Mr. logical programmer, you.

I suggest you check yourself before you put down of listeners of rap music. It is a legitimate art form, and simply because you do not understand it, doesn't mean you can put everybody who listens to it down without making yourself look silly. Doing so only makes you even more egoistic than the people you are putting down.

I personally think that people who put rap music down without demonstrating an adequate understanding of it are racist. Rap music comes straight from black culture, and just because there are white rappers and hip-hoppers doesn't mean mean it is any less black. You can make bones about how it is only the music and the attitude and the disrespect you hate, but that really doesn't cut it, both for me, and for the black people you offend with such remarks.

And I don't care if you think a certain amount of narcissism or egoism is fine, but not too much. Who sets those boundries? You? So are you Mr. Oh so logical arbiter of what is right and wrong now?

Originally posted by Napsterbater
I think it is healthy because it encourages people to actually do things in their lives, not just constantly keep re-examining themselves to find traces of ego they might not have eliminated.

Ok...I doubt anyone would suggest that a person should be without an ego, the question is...how much is too much?


Ego is what you are. It is that watcher inside the head that makes decisions and keeps you alive. Unfortunately, in this perverted society we live in, that got changed into meaning any thoughts or emotions a person has about himself, with the exception of self-hate.

I don't accept your summary of society's definition of ego.


Self-hate is the only acceptable emotion that it is socially acceptable to have.

I quite disagree. I suspect your analysis stems from your having a limited amount of experience with society at large.


Well, self-hate is unhealthy, so by definition anything that isn't self-hate is healthy, meaning egoism is healthy, but not socially acceptable.

Completely faulty logic.


Also, Everybody here is guilty of egoism in one form or another.

Probably true.


I don't even have to point it out, because Americans are some of the most egotistical people around.

Gross generalization.


Yet we cannot admit to ourselves that we even have them.

Obviously you don't suffer from that problem.


Ego is not an unhealthy state of mind, foolishly claiming to not have one is.

Firstly, ego is not a state of mind at all, it's a theoretical component of your personality, postulated by Freud. Secondly, it's not a matter of whether people have egos, we know they do, it's a matter of what you do with that knowledge.


Wrong. In every post, I be sure to make arguments so that others have something else to go on. I refuse to repost them all simply for the people who somehow cannot read past my egoism.

I have no idea what point you are addressing here.


I fail to see the contradiction.

Not surprising. That's one of the problems with the ego. It doesn't want you to see your own failings. The contradiction occured when you stated that egoism both facilitated and hindered interpersonal relationships.

We all need to have our self-esteems stroked, and giving positive reactions instead of negative ones goes a long way towards building community and trust.


So the ego is good in that it tends to make people feed each other's self-esteem in a positive way...


I feel that ego is a thing that people have a huge problem with, unneccesarily. It is one of the first and loudest complaints I get when venturing into a new forum.

Here the ego is getting in the way of forming new relationships...

That's where I see the contradiction.


And so what if it is fictional? So many works of fiction are useful to us. Fiction depicts an idealized version of a society. A version we can work towards. I saw a comment in the Morons.org boards the other day that said, "Yet another reason science fiction authors should be running the planet." You think because 1984 was fictional it wasn't useful?

Useful perhaps, but certainly not something to model your behavior on.


And, I'm sorry, but most people will not even touch my arguments. They cannot find them. If they could find them, they would find that I'm not really arguing at all, just acting in a constructive manner to benefit the rest of you.

Why thank you.


As much as this attitude I am taking on this board right now (it keeps me from getting bored) seems confrontational, it isn't.

Ok...trust me Napster...you're pretty tame compared to some of our regular posters...


I am training you guys to be able to read through a messages packaging and see the gold underneath it, ignoring your petty emotional responses.

What credentials do you possess that qualifies you to train anyone at anything?


I am also trying to get you to see that you operate in the same way.

What makes you think people are unaware of their egos? Is it because most people don't display them as you do?


You are just as egotistical inside, you just won't admit it to yourself.

You have no idea what I admit to myself or not, so your statement is without foundation.


That dichotomy is what is keeping your mind from being flexible enough to think properly.

Because obviously, anyone who disagrees with you must not be thinking properly.


I am talking about you in the figurative sense.

Which means you are talking about something you know nothing about...figuratively speaking of course.


Just drop the whole game.

Err...what game?


I claim to be selfish and egoistic, but that is only because you people think I am.

I think you have your cause and effect backwards.

After re-reading this entire string a couple of times, it is clear to me that napsterbator wants to talk about his ego in a forum that he can control and in a way that continues to stoke said ego and allows him to not have to back up any of his outragious claims.

I for one have better things to do. Good day.

This thread is beginning to lose its amusement value to me as well. Rather than fight his war all at once, I will leave this thread for now, and move on to something else. I don't possess endless self-confidence and I'm getting worn out.

I will part with this. Reality isn't what you think it is. It is, and it isn't. Reality is the sum of your conscious and your unconscious minds. The quickest way to increase your perceptive powers is to examine your subconcious and find those aspects of life you are unwilling to face, and face them head on. It is a heavily emotional and unrational trip, because we are afraid of the unknown.

It is the most logical among us that fear to take this trip, but have the most to gain from pursuing it. The most logical and rational among us are also the ones with the most confidence problems. The unrational ones usually have no problems with self-confidence.

Those (unrational people) aren't the ones I'm getting at here. Everybody here, well the ones who care to debate with me, are the logical type. They dissect reality and compartmentalize it, because true reality is scary. They prefer to deal with small chunks of reality because it is safer, they do not have to get emotionally involved. I generalize because the rational person cannot generalize very well, so I do it for them.

Egoism is but one of a number of ideas that logical people have difficulties with. They tend to have more than a little awe and fear at the person who has no problem with his narcissism. Often times, these people have caused thinking people troubles in the past. In the same way that irrational people fear people who can think, (remember Lord of the Flies?) rational people have similar problems dealing with irrational people.

Thats it guys, I am going to lurk for a little while while I find the confidence to battle again. Enjoy your victory, and I'll be back!

Originally posted by Napsterbater
It is true, healthy self-love is important when it comes to loving another. I think a certain degree of narcissism is healthy and helps relationships. It keeps people from being too attached and clingy to one another and it.

While narcissism may keep people from becoming too attached and clingy, the healthy thing in a relationship which keeps people from becoming too attached and clingy is boundaries. One does not need to be narcissistic in order to have good boundaries. In fact narcissism is a detriment to boundaries in a relationship. Therefore it may in fact be a neurotic trait which inhibits good connecting.Any person of confidence is going to come off as narcissistic to some. I have friends who don't think I am egotistical at all, and would argue for the opposite case.

Not true. Any person of confidence doesn't need to come off as narcissistic. They have no "need" at at when presenting anything other than to make themselves clear.

I think you are confusing ego with arrogance or at least you are interchanging them in order to keep your ideas flowing. While they may be one and the same to you, perhaps you should first have defined ego for the purpose of the thread. You and I differ in definition I believe.

They prefer to deal with small chunks of reality because it is safer, they do not have to get emotionally involved. I generalize because the rational person cannot generalize very well, so I do it for them.

A TRUE Grand Unification Theorist (http://www.infidelguy.com/members/rickyroma/na_harmony.htm)!