You're so Vain You Probably think this Post is about You

Anytime a story starts with the sexual escapades of a Greek deity, you know things will be ending poorly for someone. Our story begins with Echo a beautiful nymph who talks to the wife of Zues while he ummm "frolics" with the other nymphs. Upon discovering that the stories echo told were simply provided to cover for  he horn dog of a husbands sexual deviancy, Hera the wife of Zeus takes her voice. Echo then can only "echo" (oh the epidemiological irony!) the words of others. This unique talent especially came in handy when Echo met a beautiful young lad who was the spawn of a nymph who was basically raped. This lad was so beautiful in fact, that he had scores of batters from both teams eager to step up to his plate. Unfortunately for all these batters including our vocally challenged nymph friend Narcissus wasn't interested. It wasn't until one of Narcissus' more devoted suitors plunged a sword through his own chest that Narcissus found true love thanks to the benevolence of Artemis. She cursed him to gaze into his own face and fall madly in love with himself. He couldn't take the rejection of his own reflection being just out of reach. He finally took his own life and despite a long life of requests, his own heart was the only thing he plunged his dagger into.  

Ah narcissism. In approaching this response I realized that quite frankly it was setting me up for trouble. Undoubtedly in any rant about narcissism I would commit two rather destructive flaws. One mistake would be excusing myself of any blame. If I were to point fingers and name names I wouldn't more than likely leave myself off the list ignoring my own hypocrisy or perhaps worse yet I would embrace the ideals counter to which I perhaps at times experience and readily admit my tendency to at times delve into the egocentric. Thus admitting a rather large and unattractive character flaw. The second mistake has the potential to be far more volatile. For me to rail against some narcissistic public figure that everyone undoubtedly abhors would be commonplace and my propensity to write things that: a) I care about and b) could actually be of interest, I would probably point to classmates, friends, acquaintances, teachers, and anyone else I interact with on a daily basis who thinks this post is about them. That could lead to several rather unnecessary arguments and far more unnecessary visits to the school office. So in an effort to avoid both of those things I will leave my post here having incriminated no one except perhaps myself and hopefully dodged possible conflict by stepping on the toes of anyone in my life whose already inflated head couldn't withstand the increase in pressure.      



(It's in a museum so its appropriate.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_and_Narcissus