The gospel insight is of great importance and urgency for our time, when we have sunk so deep into a culture of narcissism and self-fixation, an exaggerated self-importance linked at the same time to a very low self-esteem and insecurity. In that narcissistic state, we are constantly having to assert and to convince ourselves and others (it becomes embarrassingly transparent if you are a public figure) that I am legitimate, that I am great, that I am the best person in this room. This self-absorption is an absorption in a kind of personality or in a kind of self that is tragically weak, fragile and volatile. Culturally it begins to form a new kind of barbarism because it absorbs so much of our psychic energy. It involves eventually losing the historical perspective of our own lives or of the culture, and a fear, a loss of belief in the continuity of our lives or our work or our families – the terror of living in the moment in the wrong way.
( Finding Oneself 1 Laurence Freeman )
