The Green Eyed Narcissist - Full of Envy - Envious of People

Written by Sam Vaknin

Today I wrote to someone:

"The biggest source of personal strength is loneliness. The fountain of vigour and clarity and tranquility and creativity erupts from extreme deprivation. It is when we cannot rely on others, nor depend on them (not even for our sexual fulfillment), when we neither expect, nor wish, nor dream - that we are invincible. It is when we lose everything purposefully - that we gain it back. Naked, in the moonlight, we extend a hand to the stars and are one with them, primordially and unconditionally.

When we discover ourselves - we naturally shed the world. We have no need for it, this empty shell of failed communication. We are perfectly and entirely neutral - not sad, nor elated, not scared and not proud. A state of nothingness contrasted to the former and depraved state of being. We crave no more. Are are at peace.

I congratulate you on your independence."

I am constantly envious of people. This is my way of interacting with the world. I begrudge others their success, or brilliance, or happiness, or good fortune. I am driven to excesses of paranoia and guilt and fear that subside only after I "act out" or punish myself. It is a vicious cycle in which I am entrapped.

"Envy is forever looking upwards. It does not look sideways.

In 'Facial Justice,' Hartley (1960) describes a life after a catastrophic war. A Dictator has decreed that envy is so destructive that it has to be eliminated. The citizens are coerced to be as alike each other as possible.

The worst crime is not envy itself but to excite envy.

'Equality and Envy - the two E's were...the positive and negative poles on which the New State rotated '(p.12). In order to exterminate envy everything that was enviable has been destroyed. Of course, that, in itself, is the very essence of envy.

Neither envy nor equality are spoken of as words but referred to as Good and Bad E's. All tall buildings had been destroyed in the war except the tower of Ely Cathedral and none are allowed to be built - a horizontal view of life is required. No comparisons are to be made, women are encouraged to undertake an operation so they all looked alike, to be pretty would excite envy. The result is that the populace loses its humanity and becomes a non-thinking mass. The independently minded heroine, Jael, visits the Ely and looks up at the tower and leads a dance round it. She pays the price of having her more than averagely pretty face (an Alpha face) changed to a Beta face by cosmetic surgery and so made indistinguishable from the others."

From "Cronos and His Children - Envy and Reparation" by Mary Ashwin - Chapter II "Everyday Envy"

The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines envy as:

"A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck."

And an earlier version (The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary) adds:

"Mortification and ill-will occasioned by the contemplation of another's superior advantages".

Pathological envy - the second deadly sin - is a compounded emotion. It is brought on by the realization of some lack, deficiency, or inadequacy in oneself. It is the result of unfavorably comparing oneself to others: to their success, their reputation, their possessions, their luck, their qualities. It is misery and humiliation and impotent rage and a tortuous, slippery path to nowhere. The effort to break the padded walls of this self visited purgatory often leads to attacks on the perceived source of frustration.

There is a spectrum of reactions to this pernicious and cognitively distorting emotion:

SUBSUMING THE OBJECT OF ENVY THROUGH IMITATION

Some narcissists seek to imitate or even emulate their (ever changing) role models. It is as if by imitating the object of his envy, the narcissist BECOMES that object. So, narcissists are likely to adopt their boss' typical gestures, the vocabulary of a successful politician, the views of an esteemed tycoon, even the countenance and actions of the (fictitious) hero of a movie or a novel.

In his pursuit of peace of mind, in his frantic effort to alleviate the burden of consuming jealousy, the narcissist often deteriorates to conspicuous and ostentatious consumption, impulsive and reckless behaviours and substance abuse.

Elsewhere I wrote:

"In extreme cases, to get rich quick through schemes of crime and corruption, to out-wit the system, to prevail is thought by these people to be the epitome of cleverness (providing one does not get caught), the sport of living, a winked-at vice, a spice."