(no subject)
Have you ever read a really good book? I mean a book that changes your life or makes you think about things in a whole new light? I'm not sure if I have. I've some really excellent books but I don't think any of them have been life altering, they have however made me think. The latest two books that I have read, while they were both excellent and made me think about the bigger questions in life, I don't think I would say they changed my life. These books, Life of Pi and The Secret Life of Bees, were both ironically based on characters who had to find an inner strength that was based on a very strong faith. I do not want to ruin the ending of either book but I do want to highly recommend them. I was just thinking about how interesting it is that a book can have such a profound impact on someone. It is also interesting that while neither of these books dealt with my religion, they did give me a greater belief in a higher power. I'm not saying that they changed my religion, but they did make me about my own beliefs. Also, while I must remember that these stories are fiction, it is still nice to believe that good things like that can happen.
And while in stories we can imagine a world of love and survival, we are faced with the harsh reality of everyday life. A friend recently spoke to me about reading into psychological disorders and a strong interest in a disorder involving narcissism. While I have known the definition of the word since I was strangely compelled to look it up after sadly enough, hearing it in an episode of ER, I had never actually thought of it as being an actual disorder. Now I also mentioned to my friend while speaking about this particular topic that because this is strongly linked to Freud it had to be taken with a grain of salt, but it was still quite interesting never the less. I will admit that I did not read the entire article that was sent to me, nor did I understand all of it completely seeing as I'm not a student of psychology, but I did notice some interesting traits. Many of these traits are things that can be seen in anyone. I realize that in accordance to this particular disorder, one must be narcissistic to a higher level, but don't we all have at least a small amount of self-centered, arrogance in us? Don't we all have certain beliefs that we will stand firmly behind, sometimes coming off as a tad bit arrogant? I have friends, who I would never ever consider to be narcissistic because they are such caring, giving people, yet when it comes to their personal beliefs, they will refuse to back down, appearing to be narcissistic by definition. (http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php/type/doc/id/419)
I realize that none of this makes sense and is a bit rambling but someone told me to update and these were the thoughts on my mind. I figured I'd try to talk through them, however this resulted in a bit of coherence. So hooray for anyone who's gotten this far. I'm finished for now.