In the post celebrating the first anniversary of this blog in English, I shared the challenges of translating my texts and the satisfaction of seeing the platform grow. I also expressed my immense desire to write and translate many posts at the beginning of the new year.
However, a few days later, on January 8, 2023, we came across the appalling scene of the attempted coup in Brazil1. A crowd of vandals invaded the most important buildings in Brasilia, our capital.
In addition to the fear that we would no longer be a democratic country, as a professional in the field of culture and museums, it shocked me to watch our historic buildings being destroyed by a savage and uninformed mob, to be euphemistic here.
Brasilia is inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List because of its modernist urbanism and architecture. Watching the depredation of those government buildings, which also have museums, art collections, archaeological artefacts, antique furniture, rare books, and historical documents, broke my heart.
Several spaces and items managed to be protected and saved from depredation. Others were restored after. However, many were utterly destroyed forever.2
These unbelievable events motivated me to write the last post I published here in January 2023: Kill the intelligent and skilled. What was only supposed to be the first text of the year ended up being the only and last one published.
Fortunately, our democracy survived and thrived.3 But I confess that all of this left me quite apprehensive, reflecting on some essential themes that have been a part of my reading for a couple of years.
I thought to myself: people are acting in even more violent, reckless, insane, and unpredictable ways than I could imagine.
I usually do my annual planning in February, after the summer holidays. So, considering everything we experienced last January, I decided that the time I would have to dedicate to the blog, which is not as much as I would like, would be invested on two fronts.
The first was to review and update the management plan for this platform, foreseeing several strategic, technical, logistical and design improvements, which will begin to be implemented little by little in 2024. In the long term, the new plan also envisioned expansion of the website’s resources in addition to the blog, which is and will always continue to be the main focus.
The second was to complete a text I had been drafting for some time, but always postponed the final version because the topic was sensitive and complex. I wrote different versions and delayed the work for several months in 2022.
And what topic is this? Narcissism.
Narcissists are people who have a highly grandiose, egocentric, antagonistic, utilitarian, and empathy-impaired personality style. The most severe cases also result in a mental disorder called narcissistic personality disorder.
Narcissistic people cultivate an inflated view of themselves. They really believe that they are superior to others. They like to provoke admiration and envy. And they feel a lot of envy, too, because they compare themselves to others all the time. They do not fully enjoy happiness, inner peace, gratitude, and contentment.
Narcissists are also addicted to narcissistic supply, which is external validation, the need to feel special and receive attention with emotion. And it can be a positive or negative emotion. What they cannot stand is the indifference of others.
The fact is that narcissists have an extremely transactional view of their relationships. To satisfy their addiction to attention, they manipulate, victimise themselves and play with other people’s feelings. They treat people as objects without the slightest shame or remorse. And the problems arising from this type of toxic behaviour are countless.
None of this is new. Narcissism has always existed. So much so that Narcissus is a character from Greek mythology. However, in times of the Internet, the reach of narcissists is no longer the school, the university, the church, the neighbourhood, the company, or even the country they preside over. It became the whole world.
And the Olympus, the playground, the board of these narcissistic mind games are, of course, the social media.
This is one of the many reasons I started a new personal productivity project today: A Year-Long Digital Detox. In this project, I intend to monitor my consumption of digital content and reduce it as much as possible, giving more space and free time for healthy face-to-face relationships, creative leisure and reading books.
Today, I understand that knowing more about narcissism is crucial to overcoming the problems we experience in contemporary times, such as the riot on January 8, wars (which don’t even follow elementary principles of civility and human rights), social inequality, anti-intellectualism, fake news and disinformation, publish or perish culture in universities, devastation of the Amazon, global warming and so on.
From small to large, the root of many of these evils is, to a large extent, narcissism. After all, narcissists are individuals who are highly obsessed with status, control, and power. Therefore, they are overrepresented in positions of leadership and influence. Especially when they also have psychopathic traits.
The impact of this is gigantic on management processes, the productivity market, social phenomena, laws, art, intellectuality, economics, science, philosophy, religion, etc.
From our work to our taste, all of this is being increasingly influenced by a narcissistic culture. In short, all the things that outline the zeitgeist that govern society and end up defining our daily lives.
Hence, I urgently prioritised this topic in a post, which I finally completed in 2023. At the moment, the first version is being read by my counsellors, who always give me their feedback and suggestions for improvements. I’m happy with the result. I hope you like it too.
Writing it took longer than I thought because it required a lot of reflection and research. Over the past two years, I have read more than twenty books about narcissism, psychopathy, and mental health. Not to mention conversations with health professionals and hundreds of videos, documentaries, interviews, etc. that I watched. I understand this delay and preparation were essential, as it is a complicated and controversial subject.
It will be the longest post on the blog, probably the biggest it will have in its entire history. It’s practically a small book, but I know my dear readers are not afraid of long texts.
In fact, even without posting almost anything, the blog broke its record for monthly hits last year. Many visitors arrive here not only through search engines but also by clicking directly on links shared by someone. The links also come from management platforms or Learning Management Systems, such as Moodle.
Some texts translated into English entered the top ten, taking this content to more than one hundred countries. More than half of this site’s traffic comes from abroad, mainly from the US, UK, Germany, and other European countries.
It’s the power of the Web, already mentioned here. And that it can be used to propagate narcissistic values but also to combat them. These two years that the platform celebrates today are just the beginning. I love this project. And it is now part of my personal and professional mission.4
And having you here with me gives me the certainty that I am not alone in my daily search for productivity that prioritises quality of life and social well-being.
Thank you for your presence, for your critical readings, for your sharing, and for your intelligent emails that arrive from Brazil and other continents. I feel very well accompanied. Let’s go together, always sailing on these immense waves of our cyberspace.
I end this brief post here, which is more to give you news after my silence. Everything is great with me. I hope you are well too.
May this blank page we received as a gift today be filled with even more joy, and dreams come true in 2024. Happy New Year to you who read me!
Notes
1 – Attempted coup in Brasilia on January 8, 2023
This BBC News report summarises well what happened in this coup attempt: the depredation of buildings, foreign influence in this invasion, and the role of social media in spreading disinformation, among other topics relevant to understanding the context of that fateful day.
Brazilian forces regain control after Congress stormed – BBC News
2 – The importance of the built cultural heritage and museums of Brasilia, attacked on January 8, 2023
This article, published on the International Council of Museums (ICOM) website, summarises the significance of cultural and museum heritage that has been vandalised.
3 – 2023: The Year of Turnaround
The 01/08 vandals are paying a considerable price for their actions, with some already being sentenced to almost two decades in prison. Those who participated more lightly in the anti-democratic riot reached agreements that included payment of fines, provision of community services, taking courses on democracy and a ban on maintaining profiles on social media for the period stipulated by the courts.
Our far-right former president, who is facing several lawsuits, saw the arrest of some of his leading direct advisers, in addition to having already been sentenced to ineligibility for eight years.
In 2023, Brazil’s GDP grew almost 3% (the forecast was 0.8%), inflation fell, the stock market rose, the unemployment rate was the lowest for the 3rd quarter of 2023 since 2014, and the rate of fixed employment also increased. Exports had a trade surplus, and international risk agencies improved the country’s assessment.
A historic tax reform was approved in Congress and is being implemented. In addition to reducing bureaucracy and boosting the economy, in the long term, the reform should increase the consumption power of the poorest populations, favour sectors such as education and health, and tax more polluting products or those that are harmful to health.
Despite the many imperfections of the current Brazilian government, we are no longer an international outcast and return to the public debate with several urgent issues: the search for peace and multilateralism in the world, the fight against hunger, social inequality, and the deforestation of tropical forests.
In fact, the deforestation rate in the Amazon fell in 2023, and several countries are again closing agreements and financing to help preserve it. We went from a denialist former president who spoke about fake news at the opening of the UN General Assembly to another who is applauded by a crowd around the Eiffel Tower with a speech that calls the great world powers to responsibility for global warming.
Considering that in recent years, we have lived in dark times, dominated by the far right and obscurantism in the middle of a pandemic, we really have a lot to celebrate this New Year’s Eve!
4 – Personal and professional mission of this blog
In terms of my personal life, this blog is my legacy of ideas for our children. That’s everything I’d like to share with them about values and productivity in the future if I’m not here to do so. And it’s a joy to have thousands of readers because, this way, my texts can reach more people than just these two little ones.
In professional terms, it is an opportunity to share about our academic research and Brazilian culture. The type of research I do involving management and inclusion has applied results, that is, aimed at professional practice in libraries, archives, and museums.
This way, the blog reaches my national and international target audience more than some of my scientific publications and books. And the return is visible, not only in the number of direct clicks the texts obtain but also in the contacts and opportunities I receive via email. The blog, therefore, plays an important role in the scientific dissemination of our work at the university.
This blog is part of my personal and professional life mission for all these reasons.
Please help me improve my English by submitting your suggestions through this contact form.
Images: Photos by Karolina Grabowska and Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels. Flowers’ graphic elements are from Canva.
Acknowledgments: Alberto Nogueira Veiga, and all who gave me their precious feedback, thank you for your comments and suggestions.
