The myth of Narcissus

The "self" is an illusion

There’s a Greek myth titled the “The Myth of Narcissus” where a happy, young man is going about living his life until he encounters a pool of water.

He gazes into the water and sees his own reflection for the first time and becomes fascinated by it, falls in love with it, and becomes obsessed with himself. The word narcissist comes from Narcissus.

After that he was no longer happy and his life didn’t go well.

There’s deep wisdom embodied in this myth about the arising of the human ego and how the “self” is an illusion. The ego is your phantom self for which you mistake as being the real you.

Your ego is created from a series of “identifications” with things like the color of your skin, abilities, and thoughts. You can also derive your ego by external things like money, politics, and religion.

Identity is something that you desperately seek and it’s baked into your DNA — there’s a psychological need rooted in evolutionary biology.

The wisdom is recognizing that the real “you” is when you drop all identifications, and that happiness comes from letting go of them.