According to this web site, 26% of the regular folk suffer from a form of mental disorder. These numbers don't have anything surprising since most abnormal behaviors have been piled up as databased as "disorders", giving them some sort of moral credibility. I don't know about you but back in my days (early nineties) someone with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder was called an asshole.
For years now, I have indulged myself with this great query: what's my disorder? I found a name for it on page 6 of The Broom of The System by David Foster Wallace. It's called Second-Order Vanity. Here's how it's described, from the words of Rick Vigorous himself:
"...a second-order vain person is first of all a vain person. He’s vain about his intelligence, and wants people to think he’s smart. Or his appearance, and wants people to think he’s attractive. Or, say, his sense of humour, and wants everyone to think he’s amusing and witty. Or his talent, and wants everyone to think he’s talented. Et cetera. You know what a vain person is."
and
"Now a second-order vain person is a vain person who’s also vain about appearing to have an utter lack of vanity. Who’s enormously afraid that other people will perceive him as vain. A second-order vain person will sit up late learning jokes in order to appear funny and charming, but will deny that he sits up late learning jokes. Or he’ll perhaps even try to give the impression that he doesn’t regard himself as funny at all."
That's my dysfunction. Other people suffer from this too. I'd go as far as saying it's a very common disease that gets people in between 22 and 35 years old. Part of the writing quest is to find an audience right? It's not a painful disease at all (probably NPD isn't that much either), but the Second-Order Vain is still at risk to look like a self-indulgent idiot. Forrest Griffin, for example is well-liked for his self-depreciating sense of humor, but whenever he loses fights, he behaves like a child. The whole "making fun of himself" persona is what made him popular in the first place. It's all a part of his social validation.
The only cure to Second-Order Vanity is honesty. In his 1997 interview with Charlie Rose, Wallace was asked: "You do all that for respect, don't you?" and his answer shined with simplicity: "Well no, but show me somebody who doesn't like to be respected". There is humility and proud humility. You probably don't know what I'm talking about if you don't suffer from Second-Order Vanity but don't sweat it. It's a world of petty preoccupations you don't want to deal with.
