JCK-at-large SITE

It seems so obvious to the rest of us.  Why doesn’t he just step aside?  Can he not see that just disappearing from public life would be his finest moment?  

The question is asked around the world, from Santiago to Myanmar.  Can he not see? All that is needed is his absence to heal an entire nation!  Or say a religious body. Or a business.  Or a sports organisation.  A graceful resignation.  

But of course he does not see.  These ones never see.  An entire nation can collapse around him, rife with strife, descending into levels of bigotry and beggary his predecessors could not have imagined, a spiral of apocalyptic ruin with people living at train stations just to find shelter, nomads drugged and homeless roaming the streets — and this man is liable to find a live microphone to declare his vision to the world: “The people are demanding I stay.” Blindness and unspeakable temerity.  A bad combination.   

Of course it’s not the people.  This is about the Self.  More honestly he might say, “My self-concept is demanding that I stay…. And besides, what are you suggesting?  That the world would be better without my presence?  How can anyone possibly think that way?  What could be crazier?”  Crazy indeed.  

Clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, who wrote the book on narcissism, (Don’t You Know Who I Am?) tells us that, for such people, stepping aside is like having all the air sucked out of their lungs; that you can lay all the evidence before them, that their removal would be so good for their colleagues, for the nation, for the world.  This is not how their mind works.  This is like water in the wind:

“With the narcissistic personality disorder, listing the facts doesn’t work. Letting them control the narrative does…. They will not concede because their colleagues will benefit by being out of their shadow.  Nor will they concede out of concern for their legacy, even though hundreds of their predecessors have been lauded for their graceful departures.” 

So it seems we might as well save our breath.  These people will hold on forever, soaking up the sunlight (and the spotlight) until something like skin damage drives them into the shade.  And even then, they may don a Tilley, layer on sunscreen and carry on.  Asking them to step aside is like giving them a death sentence.

A few decades ago, I heard a prominent religious leader describing his dilemma.  His reputation was already very wide when he was invited to take over a major TV broadcasting network: it could expand his influence immeasurably, nationally and beyond. “It was very tempting,” he said, “and I was thinking about it seriously.  But then I thought I heard God say, ‘Go hide yourself.’” And so he opted for less limelight, rather than more.

His text for the occasion was the divine word to the Old Testament prophet Elijah.  “Go hide yourself by the brook Cherith” — which means ‘hidden’ or ‘cut off.’  Fortunately for Elijah, obscurity was just as much a lifestyle as the public forum, so it was not a great step down.  And what followed was his finest season.  It seemed that out of that monastic obscurity came his greatest encounters with divine provision. What a trade off!  The limelight of human accolades for the smile of the Almighty!  In the psalmist words, “Make your face shine on us and we will be saved.”

Nowadays we have monasteries.  We have beautiful private villas in the Caribbean.  We have Botswana.  We have the hills of Monte Casino. We have Phuket.  Obscurity need not be unpleasant.  In fact retreats for the right reasons and seasons can be very renewing.

But that’s not really the point.  The point is entirely altruistic, and this is the nub.  This is about others.  As hard as it is for the self-absorbed narcissist to conceive, the point is others: how beautiful, how renewed, how relational, how invigorated, how respectful — how healed! — the world could be.  

In your absence.