In one of my favorite essays written by physician-researcher Lewis Thomas, he describes sitting in his corner office with a pad of paper and a sharp pencil (remember those?) trying to mentally put his thoughts into words. This took a while and as it is wont to do, the sun moved during this time. Because he’d subconsciously held the pencil with its point in the center of the pad, its shadow moved around the point when this happened. When Thomas noticed this it dawned on him that, were he inclined to do so, he could believe that he and his pencil comprised the center of the universe around which the sun revolved.
This bit of perceptual fancy has remained with me all these years, periodically resurrected from memory whenever I saw someone—including myself on occasion!—behaving in a way that suggested he or she believed themselves the center of the universe, too. Sometimes and like Thomas, we fortunately come to our senses and realize our folly. But lately I wonder if clueless narcissism may be becoming the rule instead of the exception in our society.
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