byChrisWhite – 2014

Henry Fielding wrote in a century whose clocks ticked slower, whose judgments fell heavier, and whose men—for better or worse—rarely wandered too far from the sum of their own philosophies. He said: it is easier to make good men wise than to make bad men good. A line too smooth not to remember. A truth too sharp not to reopen every time one finds themselves staring down the barrel of another bloated ego wielding victimhood like a bayonet. Fielding had curls and a constable’s mind. That alone earns him kinship in my book.

Now forgive me this splintered tirade. The sort of thing that bubbles up when you’re cornered by absurdity too long. The week has been brutal. Not in the biblical sense—no pestilence, no locusts—but in the quieter violence of entitlement. The drawn-out hiss of narcissism shedding its skin in my office.

Narcissists are not simply irritating. They are ruinous. They move like wasps, and not the noble kind that dies for the hive, but the lesser, petulant breed that stings without provocation and dares you to find meaning in the welt. I’ve met more than I’d like to count. I bear their fingerprints on every weary synapse. And each time I do, I remember my brother. The one the war took from me. Not with bullets, but with fireless explosions, with concussions layered in sand and time, and the slow collapse of a brain no longer safe to occupy.

He wore his torment like regalia. Not his fault, no. But not without consequence. There were days he turned cruelty into ceremony. Days I could not reach him across the void of his reflection. That kind of pain has no simple exit. And though his vanity was born of trauma, not malice, it burned just the same.

So when I meet one in the wild, these undiagnosed emperors, these petty, attention-seeking tyrants of small empires, it stirs a fury I have no use for. And some mornings I dream of solutions no civilized person should entertain. An exam. A threshold. A filter for reproduction. Not eugenics, no—but a reckoning. A simple test: does the world need more of you? If no, then kindly keep your gametes to yourself.

And let us speak plainly. Gay couples—God bless them—make better parents than half the straight ones I’ve met. They plan. They vet. They choose. Not from lust or accident but from a sacred ache to nurture. Their children are curated with more care than fine wine. You don’t get a mouthful of moonshine from that barrel. You get a soul raised in intention.

But back to narcissists. Back to the reason my teeth ache.

They enter my office in suits too tight, cologne too thick, grievances sharpened like pencils. They speak with certainty, not clarity. They ask for advice and then wield it like a weapon against you. If they fail, it’s your blueprint that was flawed. If they succeed, they rewrite history to exclude you. They do not remember help. They remember only that they were always destined.

It is like watching a man drive a car into a lake and blame the compass for the water.

Some of them inherit things. Businesses. Properties. Legacies crafted by hands long dead and calloused. They accept these inheritances not as gifts but as coronations. They believe the world is blind for not recognizing their brilliance. They sabotage others not for sport, but for equilibrium. Your excellence wounds them. They must level the field. And if they can’t rise, you must fall.

I try not to hate them. I fail.

And I’m no saint. My gifts are small. I can write. I can speak. But show me an equation and I’ll break into hives. My wife, Emily, can slice through numbers like silk. She dreams in geometry. But ask her to write a thank-you card and she stares like the page owes her an apology.

We balance each other. Which is the point. The only point. The poets need the architects. The dreamers need the engineers. You do not build a world alone. And you are never complete.

This season, I ask you to notice the people who fill your gaps. And if you love them, tell them. And if they love you, mock them gently. Lest they forget their feet are made of clay.

Narcissists forget. They walk on marble even as it cracks. They cannot be taught humility. They must be forced to inhabit it. And yet, even then, they squirm. Coal for their stockings, if there’s any justice left. May Santa smite them with silence.

And may we all be spared their sermons for one holy day.

Amen.