Love & Narcissism
'While only a small minority of us are full-blown narcissists, it is essential to remember we all have significant narcissistic tendencies. For example, almost everyone has fallen in love. And, as Buber enthusiasts have pointed out, falling in love is a variety of the I-I relationship and a totally narcissistic phenomenon. When we fall in love, we do not fall in love with someone else; we fall in love with a fantasy we have of that someone else. It is an I-I relationship because we are merely in love with our own fantasy.
What happens then, after a couple of weeks or months, or even a couple of years after we have taken marriage vow, is that we wake up one morning to discover that our beloved no longer conforms to our fantasy, that we are left stuck there with a You, a stranger. That, of course, is when the work of real love begins-transforming that stranger, that You, into a Thou, despite the friction, with the friction, through the fiction.'
- Scott Peck, 'A World waiting to be born: The search for Civility'.
What happens then, after a couple of weeks or months, or even a couple of years after we have taken marriage vow, is that we wake up one morning to discover that our beloved no longer conforms to our fantasy, that we are left stuck there with a You, a stranger. That, of course, is when the work of real love begins-transforming that stranger, that You, into a Thou, despite the friction, with the friction, through the fiction.'
- Scott Peck, 'A World waiting to be born: The search for Civility'.
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