The notion of self-reliance introduced by Ralph Waldo Emerson during the 19th century influenced Americans to hold individualism and self-sufficiency in the highest regard. However, I was prompted to start thinking about how that creed of ours has become warped recently after watching my brother have to violently argue with another gentleman to not disrespect the patience of at least 50 other people by cutting in line for the bathroom at a football game. Maybe that is just part of the string of life's many meaningless events, but it seems America has meandered from our classic pattern of self-reliance to self-indulgence. Not only has the indulgence in food become an epidemic in America, but also the indulgence of self. There is a growing sense of self-entitlement as well as an overlording confidence over other peoples that germinated from a mere, healthy self-appreciation for our way of life. Maslow said esteem is one of the most important necessities of man, but gorging on it has created a destructive shift in our culture toward widespread narcissism. Though it's not easy to quantify or track statistically, it can be observed throughout our culture in emerging trends and events.

Not to beat a horse to death, resurrect it and beat it to death once again, but a telltale sign of our society's self-obsession is the rabid use of social networking sites to brand ourselves. There's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping in touch with friends, but the alluring mystery of peoples' lives disappears when everything including Charlie's current blood pressure, why Mitch is switching to the communist party and how Heidi is late to her pap test are waiting for us on the update page. Again, we all like having our thoughts and opinions appreciated (or universally derided in my case), but the deluge of blogs and tweets have all drowned out each other's voices and exposed the myopia of thinking what we're doing at every minute of the day is actually interesting to others. It's like everyone is competing to sell his or her own brand of self over one another instead of just being. Although, you would already know this if you followed the link I posted from my phone while I was swimming to Twitter to the blog post on my Facebook.com wall. 

Perhaps this growing attitude is why a recent Bloomberg article blames the financial meltdown - amid a myriad of complex reasons - on narcissism in the financial community or why a columnist in The Wall Street Journal points out our favorite terminator's narcissism in the collapse of California's economy. Scholars on the subject even accused our own president of being a narcissist during the last election for his "haughty" mannerisms and rhetoric. To be fair it'd be for him to be self-absorbed when he was TIME's person of year next to such past greats as the 2006 person of the year, "You." That's right, not you specifically as in the only person left reading this column, but "You" as in the idea that we are all person of the year.

Being individualistic or even a little narcissistic is who we are as Americans. It drives much of our ambition and gives everyone the self-confidence we need to be happy. Without some good old-fashioned individualism and a little narcissism we might not even be independent today. Times have changed though and our proud individualism has turned into a dangerous affair with ourselves. Widespread narcissism is a major deterrent to our sense of unity as a people and creates delusions of power that could put us in trouble as a country. As a highly esteemed, trend-setting columnist who summers exclusively in Monte Carlo and who's impeccable writing has never needed to be edited, you can trust me on this one.