Narcissus Was Not A Narcissist

In this episode of The Gifted Neurodivergent Child Podcast, we reinterpret the story of Narcissus, not as a tale of vanity, but as one of deep introspection and the persecution of those who practice it. We explore how fragmented intelligence focuses on surface meanings, while holistic intelligence uncovers deeper insights. Using ancient myths, we highlight the importance of reconnecting with holistic thinking to understand ourselves and society. Perhaps it is time we revisited their meanings again.

Transcript

 Reflection on Reflecting

[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the gifted neurodivergent child podcast. I'm Lillian Skinner. I want to share with you a new approach for this podcast. 

 To really drive home the difference between holistic and fragmented intelligence. We're going to start looking at ancient stories, myths, fables, and folklore, to understand the difference, the unique insights, holistic versus fragmented intelligence result in. Because our systems are so set up for fragmented intelligence that. Truly, most of us do not know what holistic intelligence is. 

 Holistic intelligence. The natural state, for everyone. at birth. Fragmented intelligence emerges through the traditional education systems that compartmentalize knowledge. And then this continues on through our corporate work systems. 

Studies show only 2% of adults maintain holistic intelligence. Those adults are considered creative geniuses. That 2% are twice the exceptional and they have not been fragmented or they have healed. The reason we're seeing labels for neurodivergence is so [00:01:00] they can understand the parts of us that still have. Holistic intelligence is because of holistic intelligence. is the part they couldn't separate. 

They couldn't break. They have studies where they found the brain scans of Neurodivergents light up in areas that neuro neurotypicals don't. This shows connections where neurotypicals have lost them. 

 Some of us can't be broken our frameworks, our internal. Our way of moving through the world is clear. We see top-down and bottom-up, and we see how they meet in the middle and where they don't. As a result, we don't really need the frameworks and institutionalized standards that other people do. 

 I do so much calculating in my body. This is part of being a savant. We have embodied cognition to a level that our systems will just simply refuse to believe. Our science is only starting to barely touch on it, but it is incredible. And the future we're facing is going to require this. 

The future we're facing is going to. Give us an advantage in the transition. The value of [00:02:00] understanding these stories is seeing how others saw this in the past or how it's transitioned to this. And also, how AI will value us. We can see deeper. When I go through these stories, you're going to notice that I see things others don't, the world is not 2D. 

 Those of us who can take what society has already produced, the two D and expand it, understand it, and really comprehend it in true life. We'll find intelligence that our systems have simply chosen not to measure. It is incredible intelligence. The ancient stories could almost function as an intelligence test. So the idea that this intelligence wasn't measurable was never true. It was more about using that intelligence in a way that our systems didn't want it to be recognized. 

Now, It is recognized. They put labels on it. What do they do with those labels though? I really don't know that I trust them to treat us well. This story will show you how the pathology of [00:03:00] narcissism. It was actually built on a lie. . 

 Ancient stories operate on many levels. While they're often dismissed as simple children's tales by those with fragmented intelligence. They contain profound layers of meaning for children, and adults who have their intact holistic intelligence. If you find these stories to be different, weird, or incomplete. This is part of their complexity. in order to perpetuate these theories, ideas or concepts forward, they were hidden. They were hidden in stories that had a very simple meaning. But when you look at the depth of the story, they mean something much deeper, much more complex. 

Now let's get into the story that we'll tackle today. The story of Narcissus. 

 this is a 2000 year old story. It's a story of a young man who encounters his own reflection in a pool of water and falls, hopelessly in love with it. 

The story was written in the third [00:04:00] century.AD, by a Roman poet writer named Ovid, and it has become history's most famous story about vanity. 

 Narcissus was known for his extraordinary beauty, but he also was known for his disdain for those who loved him, by rejecting many potential lovers. 

 One of those potential lovers was a nymph named Echo. She appears in the story as Narcissus is looking into the water. Echo calls out his name across the pond, Narcissus, Narcissus. But Narcissus does not respond to her. She takes us as rejection. She crumbles in pain, and she cries out to the goddess, nemesis to curse narcissist for not returning her love. Nemesis appears and curses Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection. 

 Upon seeing his reflection in the water, he becomes so entranced. Narcissus cannot look away eventually wasting away by the water's edge. In some versions of this transforming to a flower called Narcissus, a daffodil, which grows near water. 

 This [00:05:00] myth explores the theme of self-love. Pride and the consequences of rejecting human connection. If we do not extend ourselves to others, then we will be left alone and we will waste away. It's a story about how such self-interest is particularly harmful for our connections to others. And I don't want to take away from that because I do think we need other people, 

But the story is, feels very unnatural. When I first heard it as a child Everything about it felt wrong. The story wasn't deep enough and it didn't have anything really interesting going on. 

 That's because the story is about fragmented and holistic intelligence. It's about who they value in society and who they punish. It's a story about a young man. Who's different. He lives in a village or a town where he's the only one like him. And others resent him. They resent him for being different. 

It's a story about the differences between. The deep, profound thinkers and those who go along with what they're told to be and do and how our [00:06:00] structures of society. Support those who go along and destroy those who are the deeper, profound thinkers. 

When I read this as a kid. I immediately was asking, why is he staring into a pond? Didn't they have mirrors at the time. Do they not realize ponds are really bad reflecting people. And are we sure he's not actually just reflecting, like it's a reflecting pool. 

I knew from reading a lot as a child that reflecting pools were things you went to, to stare into and understand yourself. One didn't use them to see your reflection. You went to a reflecting pool to deeply reflect upon life, upon feelings, upon your relationships, et cetera. 

The idea he's sitting at a pond staring into a deeply. That makes sense. But to see his own reflection, because he's in love with it, makes zero sense. because you can't see your reflection. In a pond. Ponds are dirty and dark and there's stuff floating around and it's always getting distorted. Even on very [00:07:00] Flatwater surfaces, where you can see the reflection of the clouds and people, the buildings, and the trees. You're still going to look in those and see your face distorted. because water moves. It moves at the slightest bit of vibration. And if you're leaning over the water, you're causing vibration, which is going to make it move, this doesn't make any sense. 

 He's not sitting in a pond, looking at his reflection he's staring at, upon reflecting deeply from the internal. He's reflecting on who he is as a human being. He's in a trans state like he's meditating. But you're not allowed to say that because this is a story about vanity. And vanity and is important. Vanity is one of the seven deadly sins. so you can't think about this deeply because it can't be different than the story about vanity. 

This is because everybody is taught what's moral, religious and good as an emotional thing, separate from logic. But for me They're the same. 

 Because my emotions and intellect work as one, the [00:08:00] first thing I felt when I was listening to story, it was confusion. And the second thing was, is vanity really a deadly sin is vanity really this bad. Like we're going to kill somebody over being vain. That seems overkill because. It doesn't seem like in my life, anybody gets murdered or killed for being vain. 

We celebrate people who are vain. We have whole industries for this. I struggle with vanity because I'm a whole person. And the idea of breaking me apart and not seeing me hole hurts. It really causes me this uncomfortable feeling. Because it's separating me to this shallow level, and I don't like it. 

 I struggle because I am not shallow. I am focused on everything. I can see the whole picture. If I am focused on the shallow. If I am caring about what I look like that is lost. And that makes me feel uncomfortable and less present. I like to feel immersed in my environment and understanding it. I see patterns easily. And by focusing on what I look like, [00:09:00] I am pulled out of that. My sense of self is fractured. And I'm not whole. So, I prefer to stay in my whole state. I prefer not to be separate from my actual self. It makes me very uncomfortable. 

This Immediately resonates with me because I have been told that I'm vain. I was told I was vain because I was reading a book while everybody else was like enjoying themselves doing a group thing. But I am overwhelmed by groups. 

Groups are too much. I would also be caught walking around in the woods, sitting by a reflecting pool, because my brain takes in so much that I need more downtime. When you're in that state, you're in a different state, it is not. You're just sitting by the pond, steering, waiting for somebody to come by and wave. 

You're actually thinking deeply, you're putting the world together. You're noticing patterns. You're in a trance state. You're in a hypnotic state. You're daydreaming, there's several names for these different states, but we have multiple levels of consciousness. 

. Narcissism is based on this story. A story based on [00:10:00] someone who's doing deep reflection in a pool. Internally, not externally. And we now have a whole idea that people who are self-centered stare in pools of water or mirrors or at the reflection, and this means they are selfish, they're vain. They only care about their looks, and they won't listen to people screaming their names across ponds. 

This is so ridiculous, and I never understood it. But this is what happens when you separate emotions and intellect. It's hard for you to go back into your memories and think, when did this ever happen to me. How likely is it? Does this feel right? 

When we don't have emotions and intellect. We don't test our theories in real life. I have been walking around with this since childhood thinking that is the dumbest story I've ever read. But. When I read it. again, I was like, oh this is way deeper than they said, this is how many of the stories are. 

 I will go further because there's much more evidence to point to my version. [00:11:00] Over the other. 

Let's talk about water. Why would a young man be sitting by a water, looking into it. Because the water's edge. It is where water is most mesmerizing. There's a quality about the water rippling that induces altered states of consciousness. And science backs me up on this. 

 This young man who's in deep reflection, he's using this pool is an ASM R state. We know this exists in cultures because over time they have used this space and property of water, very deliberately. 

Indigenous visions quests often occurred by lakes and streams. Buddhist water meditation is an actual thing. They have reflecting pools and ancient Greek temples. Asian philosophers writing about reflecting on any idea. They weren't being metaphorical. They were literally talking about going to water's edge and using the water's hypnotic qualities to access deeper states of intelligence, where your body and mind were in a flow. And you were deeply thinking in a big picture way. 

 We actually think people would [00:12:00] be staring deeply at their own reflection. This interpretation means we've strayed very far away from our understanding of deep thinkers. To such a degree, we didn't even consider it could be about reflecting, even though it said a pool of water. Which is. Metaphorically used over and over in literature to deeply reflect. But we actually think in our society today that people stare at their face for hours. 

I think this is an acting thing. I think this is demonstrated in movies and I see it in shows and TV, and I really, truly don't believe that people stare at themselves naturally unendingly because it would just get very boring after a while. And you can just find more and more things wrong. 

I think that our society has almost become art instead of real life, because we have detached ourselves so much from what our natural frameworks are. We are moving through the world as our systems say, we should be. Rather than how we naturally are. And unfortunately for me, I can't be what our systems say we should be. I also think it's interesting that I am pathologized to the moon and [00:13:00] back. 

Yet I can read these things. and see deeply in them. Because we pathologize brilliance. We pathologize creativity. We pathologize people who can see through what is artificial or superficial. 

Neurodivergence do not use the frameworks of our systems because they build their own insight and they work very, very hard to strip us of that and the systems by putting us in ABA, tutoring, tutoring is ABA. It's just for regular kids. Most of our teaching is 2d, which is an extension of ABA. We know ABA is harmful according to Carnegie Mellon research, it doesn't educate. So we're taking the people who are most naturally wired to be as we are. And forcing them to be, as they want us to be, as it serves the system. That's fine and good when the system's up and running and serving people. As the system goes away, that. is going to be. much more damaging. 

 I've talked about the dual processing theory before and how we have two different fundamental ways of processing information. The first is [00:14:00] cognitive. It's a fragmented processing. It's analytical. It breaks down the discrete pieces and analyzes them separately. It's the most recent. Evolutionary development, our prefrontal cortex. Is the thing that helps us categorize. 

It says this Berry is safe. This Berry will kill you. It's not complex. It's doing contrast and comparison for two things, which is why they make us focus on the cognitive because it makes things simple, 2d, black and white. 

The Other type of intelligence. Is this bigger one networking one. It's a connecting one. It's very energy absorbing. It's very big picture. And it is the type that's much older. It's default mode network processing. This is a very quick responsive. This is the kind that we're looking for now, when we talk about natural or holistic intelligence, this is the driver of it. But in my research. It's the somatic intelligence and some of us, we exist in this and our systems. Don't let us do that. the thing is when we're in this system, because it is such a networking system and very [00:15:00] energy absorbing. It, can appear that we're daydreaming, or zoning out. 

This is a trans state. When I move into my body intelligence, my body gets a calmer feeling. And I move into thinking deeply in my subconscious. 

 In school. When they say focus, focus comes back to your cognitive, let us fragment you and get you into your cognitive. Because you are technically focusing in daydreaming, in zoning out and all those other states. You're just focusing on the big picture and they want you to focus on the small picture because that way we can work for them within the system 

 But as a child, you think that I was murdering others for seeing connections or doing this processing in the background. I always wondered why it wasn't just allowed to be me. The story is partly showing me why I was not allowed to be me. 

As we get back to the story echo comes along and she's calling out to him. and he's not responding. Not because he's vain, but because he's literally in another state of [00:16:00] consciousness. His name supports this. theory. Narcissus Is derived from narky, the Greek word for numbness. or sleep. It's the same root word that gives us narcotic. 

 it's not about self-admiration. But rather self-immersion, or deep meditation. . 

 The other name, echo, is also representing something. She's representing the fragmented perspective. Her name is about her intelligence. Echo is one who echoes back what she learned from others. 

 So she couldn't figure out what he was doing because she's not a deep thinker. She's also not interested in Narcissus, because he's a deep thinker. She's interested in him because he's beautiful. that is the point of telling that in the beginning of the story. 

But we've converted this beauty part into him immediately being vain. with no bearing on whether or not he is intelligent. I don't know that our society understands how deeply intelligence changes the way you see the world. . [00:17:00] 

They curse Narcissus for being a deep thinker. using the word nemesis for the goddess's name, . Ovid's saying the nemesis of the deep thinker is those with power. The gods or government. This is really a brave thing to do everything about this little tiny story is a giant profound statement and they cut it down and made it that short. Because they were trying to get the meaning through in the least amount of words. So, it was called childlike. 

What we have in front of us is actually not about vanity, but a political statement. Saying something against the environment of the time. It's saying. Apparently 2000 years. ago that we are only caring about serving those who are fragmented and not about those who are deep thinkers. We actually kill them for not being average or normal. 

 When I put this idea into AI. They said this has never been seen before. I thought. [00:18:00] Are you kidding me? The girl's name is Echo. The gods name. His name's Narcissus. And all these things are just blatant. Really? No one's ever seen this before, but I think it's more that people don't say it out loud. 

 Now, this last part is the key part. Ovid the poet author. Of Narcissus was cast out of Roman society by the emperor Augustus. He was officially exiled for what they call a Carmen at error. A poem and a mistake for his transformative poetry. 

To challenge the rigid Roman thinking when the emperor Augustus was known for trying to enforce rigid, strict, moral and social code. Ovid wrote the story of Narcissus, turning a warning about persecuted higher intelligence into a story about vanity, which is why it's his only story that's managed to survive the ages. 

 This is my interpretation for this particular myth. I will go through others, one per podcast, to understand how much of the stories have not been. Seen for what they're really truly [00:19:00] saying., the world is changing. Our societies are changing. Our systems are changing. Our environment is changing. 

 Our children are holistically intelligent children, and the world needs that intelligence. 

We need to get back in touch with our history, with the parts of the holistic that are available. This is why I'm doing this. You will find in ancient texts, there is much more available to those of us with holistic intelligence then there is in current text. The current text is actually diverting us from our holistic. 

There's a reason twice exceptional people are not recognized in our world and our government. They're still calling us dysfunctional. That we have disability and ability, but that's simply not true. What we are showing is the oppression of our somatic intelligence. I can show you how asynchrony is actually. Bi-directional learning that. The twice exceptional children have we have geniuses? We have the ability to learn through our cognitive, to our somatic and realize [00:20:00] it somatically. And we have the ability to learn through our somatic, to our cognitive and realize that cognitively. That is the difference between us and the rest of the population. 

And it is a profound difference. A difference that will save lives in the future. If we fully understand it. I hope this was valuable. If you're interested in understanding your full holistic intelligence, reach out, I have groups that cover this and we're trying to build more education around it because there just isn't any, and only a few of us fully understand how it works. 

Thank you for listening. 

I hope this was valuable. Everyone takes care 

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