The Seven Tidal Waves of Augustine

Every so often, I get in these contemplative moods, where I attempt to merge the writing styles of Eco, Tom Robbins, and Richard Feynman into a conceptual goo to coat the veneer of consciousness itself, in an attempt to expand it. But, I surmise for some, this is just word salad left out to rot in the UV rays emanating from the solar disc that helps life perpetuate itself. It’s not just the light that is cast upon us something resembling wisdom, but the shadows that get cast upon the heart. Maybe this is brooding...

St. Augustine is a particular “hero” of mine. I’m not keen on hero worship, but hero respect, for one of the greatest evils is the tyranny of should, a.k.a., fanaticism. But, I do have a relic of him given to me by my mother.

I bring up Augustine because here was a man – at least until his conversion to the faith after reading the biography of St. Anthony of the Desert – who was a chronic narcissist. In his teenage years, he is what we would call today a sexual addict. While his immortal words of “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” haunt us through time, his other undying prayer of intercession gives us a clue about his particular lifelong struggle:

“det mihi deus castitatem sed nondum”

This was after his conversion. Previously, he had mucked around with the Manicheans, a tepid form of Gnosticism. But, as he later wrote in his Confessions and City of God, the pernicious evil to be vanquished was reckless self-indulgence.

There are many theories that have value in explaining the emergence of severe narcissistic personality disorder. One my father taught me had to do with poor attachment to one (or both) parental figures, but typically it’s poor attachment to one’s mother. Monica, Augustine's mother, was what you would call a helicopter mom in Roman times. She was constantly berating Auggie, counseling him on making the right friends in the Imperial Court through a proper marriage. It was an ancient version of climbing the social ladder through marriage. Monica even went so far when she learned her son was “escaping” – an adult male – that she hot-footed it to the nearest port to get on the next ship to hunt his ass down. Talk about commitment.

One of Augustine's great shame is that he had a son he fathered with his concubine of 14 years, and abandoned them both to marry a Roman "Empress" his mother steered him towards. For what? Status and reputation.

So, while that particular model of narcissism has some cogency to it, we don’t know for sure as to its exact mechanism. Even if we did, could we really eliminate it? What’s the big deal with narcissists anyway?

They are emotional vampires who can never be satiated. Narcissus was frozen in time by his idealist reflection and he died an idiot. But for the ones that have some common sense, a monster is let loose upon society, manipulating its desperate mutated twin and others who suffer from desperation.

What’s the antidote?

Amor propria

Loosely translated it means “healthy self-love.” Aquinas is well known for his Summa, but this little sliver of gold isn’t just idealism, for it’s a very mild version of narcissism, which exists on a spectrum. Everyone has a dollop of narcissism, for if we didn’t, we wouldn’t learn to desire that which is good for us and germinate the same seed in others, or so we’d like to hope. Narcissism in Christian Lore is simply disordered Pride, which leads to addictions and justifications for self-fulfillment through exploitation.

It ends up violating Nature in a pernicious way, for Nature is an ecosystem of birth, nurturing (co-constitution), death, and re-emergence. Narcissism demands of Nature and all in it to bend to one’s will and desires.

I wouldn't be writing any of this if I felt I had all the answers - I'm still very much - evolving, I suppose. Take all this with large grains of salt. A whole salt shaker might be needed. Ha. I just know the struggle of idealism turning inwards on itself...

And now for a little of dressing for this somewhat turgid, umbral, philosophical, psychoanalytic, and stream of unconscious roughage. Yes, you can label me a bit Pollyanish and idealistic. Life goes on.

At least it's out now...

[Verse 1]

In the empire of the senses

You're the queen of all you survey

All the cities, all the nations

Everything that falls your way, I say

 

[Chorus]

There is a deeper world than this

That you don't understand

There is a deeper world than this

Tugging at your hand

 

[Verse 2]

Every ripple on the ocean

Every leaf on every tree

Every sand dune in the desert

Every power we never see

 

[Chorus]

There is a deeper wave than this

Smiling in the world

There is a deeper wave than this

Listen to me, girl

 

[Verse 3]

Feel it rising in the cities

Feel it sweeping over land

Over borders, over frontiers

Nothing will its power withstand, I say

[Chorus]

There is no deeper wave than this

Rising in the world

There is no deeper wave than this

Listen to me, girl

 

[Verse 4]

All the bloodshed, all the anger

All the weapons, all the greed

All the armies, all the missiles

All the symbols of our fear

 

[Chorus]

There is a deeper wave than this

Rising in the world

There is a deeper wave than this

Listen to me, girl

 

[Verse 5]

At the still point of destruction

At the center of the fury

All the angels, all the devils

All around us, can't you see?

 

[Chorus]

There is a deeper wave than this

Rising in the land

There is a deeper wave than this

Nothing will withstand