The Narcissist is Inflexible and Unteachable: The narcissist's mind and motivations will always be an enigma to the outside observer. We can describe narcissists and know what to look for and even try to describe the internal workings of their mind and emotions, but in the end if we aren't narcissists we are giving educated guesses. Sam Vaknin and H. G. Tudor, both avowed narcissists, have taken great efforts to describe the internal workings of their minds and emotions, their motivations and in the early stages their videos are of great value. It just isn't natural or logical or productive to think like a narcissist and the understanding of narcs is simply a way of getting answers for the victim. It is also a field of study for mental health professionals. Those of us on the outside are motivated to know so that we can be enlightened, so that we can make some sense out of the nonsensical world we didn't realize we were dragged into. The subject of love and loyalty and their importance in a relationship has been covered previously. The fact that the narc has an impaired, or no ability at all to appreciate or understand or feel love and loyalty has also been covered. Yes, the narc uses people and loves things although they may “love” their animals and their children, but we use that term love loosely when it comes to the narcissist. My personal observation is that the narc has a loyalty to ideas and ways of thinking, but not to people and this is one of the things that makes them hollow people with no internal compass or code of conduct. It is what makes them unteachable and inflexible and ultimately stunts their growth as individuals. This once again gets into one of the narc's deficiencies. The narc can't think three dimensionally when it comes to emotions, they can only see things on face value, think in two dimensions. That doesn't mean that a narc can't be highly intelligent, but when it comes to emotions they are incapable of understanding many things that most of us take for granted. They don't seek to be independent thinkers or comprehensively understand something, they simply read the “cliff notes” of a subject or even of life itself and then go about pretending they comprehensively studied and red the whole book. So why is this so important? Because being a hollow person is at the heart of, the root of the narcissist's malignancy and toxicity. Malignancy and toxicity to themselves and to all that they come in contact with. Why is this so? Because the narcissist's loyalty to ideas means that they wed themselves to lies and truth becomes a casualty. Yes, the narcissist can never understand the value and the importance and the need for truth. The narcissist considers the truth the enemy, when in reality it is the truth and the truth alone that can free them from their own bondage. So what is wrong with being loyal to an idea? Maybe nothing at all if those ideas are positive and helpful to society, but the problem is always the same, truth can sometimes mean that we need to reevaluate our thought process and divorce ourselves from ideas that we have held all of our lives, because everything always has to be seen in light of new information. The only concept anyone should ever be wedded to is the truth and the truth alone. We should always be willing to lay any idea down when the new truth we have learned dictates that. Our concept of truth is only what we have learned, internalized and processed and it is an opinion, our most accurate and best guess as to what is true. But again we should always be willing to modify that idea we have of what we think the truth is. Is there an ultimate truth? Yes there is, but mere mortals will never be able to see things to that level of clarity. That is God's territory. So how does this apply to narcissists? Well the narcissist sees things totally differently. It's all about image and being seen as a fine person for the narc. Getting accolades and being at the cutting edge. There is no substance to what a narcissist believes or stands for. The narcissist looks at a modern society and then judges what is considered the most trendy and politically correct and most praiseworthy way of thinking in a society and then takes on all of those ideas and opinions as their own. They in effect become loyal to popular and mainstream opinion. Why does the narcissist do this? Because the narcissist is a hollow person with no moral compass and no motivation to seek the truth. It's all about appearance and being seen for the narc, their billboard. Now what if it becomes popular to be against something the narc previously supported? Well then the narc shifts that loyalty to the next popular item. What if it becomes trendy to be an independent thinker? The narc will then feign that also and be counter to things, but only after close observation of people with the genuine passion for change and then the narc will as closely as possible mimic that behavior. So an uninformed observer might actually believe a narc to be a dissident and on the surface that narc will appear to sound like one, but don't ask to many questions. The narc intuitively understands the weakness of any of their stances and this is one of the reasons the narc will never get into an actual substantive discussion on a topic they supposedly support. The narc isn't interested in the truth or to expose their weak understanding of a topic. Again to the narc it's all about maintaining that image, what is on the surface. The narc has no interest and sees no value in the truth if it isn't trendy and sees any attempts at a substantive discussion that may give ideas that are unpopular a seat in her mind as something that doesn't fit her agenda. The narc will never be seen as unpopular or ever have a politically incorrect idea unless of course it becomes trendy to be unpopular or politically incorrect. Then the narc will be all in. Now we might call this the end of the discussion, but we are dealing with a narcissist and so we need to go further. Now if the narc were a genuine person with an actual internal code of conduct and a way of thinking that was actually genuine they could then go into any setting and interact with numerous people as an integrated human being that has ideas that are different from those that are around them, but always willing to change their opinion if their internal truth is contradicted by something that is actually closer to the truth. But here is the problem for the narcissist. The narcissists, being that they are hollow people, have to create a false persona for any setting they are in. The narc couldn't possibly maintain 5 genuine personas, but the narc can very easily put on 5 distinct custom made masks (“hollow surface personas”) at any one time. So the narc sees no value or interest in developing themselves as a genuine human being. Instead the narc puts all of their energy into creating the illusions of being a certain type of person. So what suffers for all of this? Well the people around the narc suffer incredibly, especially when the narc decides they have mined all of their partner's resources, “sucked them dry”, so to speak. But the narc also suffers since they never grow as human beings, they simply shift from one false mask to the next, and this creates the utter turmoil and chaos that the narc spends every moment of every day in. The narc has no stability, no core that has grown over the course of their lives. This creates the insecurity that is at the heart of their malevolent behavior. Yes, the narcissist has insecurities and those insecurities mean that the narcissist intuitively knows that they are "different" from others and not necessarily in a good or superior way. But the narc can't handle that fact, so they constantly have to remind themselves of the falsehood that they are superior to others. Part of being superior to others means that they have to make others in their environment feel inferior to them. Anyone in the narc's environment that has more knowledge or ability is a sore spot for the narc, therefore the narc impulsively has to cut those people down. So, maybe the intent is motivated by a survival instinct. The narc can't imagine being inferior or wrong or bad. The narc can't see or understand that most people are neither all good or all bad and that an acknowledgment and awareness of their own "badness" or being wrong makes a "normal" person work on those areas and become better. The narc can only think in terms of superior or inferior, good or bad right or wrong and the narc always needs to be superior, good, and right, even if they are obviously inferior and wrong. The narc pulls this off in their mind by warping the reality around them and oftentimes enlisting others ("flying monkeys") to reinforce the false image of themselves. Yes the narc puts others down to make them inferior, but that isn't all they do. The narc will engage in a smear campaign or intimidate someone or even threaten or commit physical violence just to always be in the superior position. The position of control and command. So yes the narc may be motivated by the need to deny and drown out their own insecurities, but it goes without saying that the terrible acts they commit are never justified. Those acts are evil plain and simple. So the narc avoids growth and emotionally stays an immature child. So is there really an excuse that the narc can never change? That there upbringing or their genetics or a combination of both caused them to be who they are? So people claim the narc has an abnormal brain structure? Well the brain is plastic and flexible well into old age and that is simply not an acceptable excuse. For all we know years of abberant and evil behavior and a total ignoring of their own conscience and a refusal to feel any empathy or remorse caused the actual remodeling of that narc's brain. But just in case the excuse is made that the narc's brain started out with a deficit let's watch a brief clip from the Ted x talk titled “the woman who changed her brain”. A link of the full video is given at the beginning of the description. So many might not want to believe that the narcissist can change, but the narcissist could change if they so chose. It would take training themselves to respond to and grow their conscience, empathy, feelings of remorse and to try and understand what love really is and cultivate it. No we aren't living in the 1950's. Times have changed. The brain does have plasticity and the brain does restructure it's very physical anatomy with training, even in older people. So the narc has absolutely no excuse at all. They are fully responsible. The narc refuses to learn, the narc refuses to change, the narc refuses to humble themselves and give their life to God. Yes, it would be very convenient for the narcissist if everyone believed they couldn't change because of a brain abnormality, or because of their upbringing, or because of numerous other reasons. Many victims and most narcissists reinforce the notion that the narc can't change. The truth is the narc could change, but the narc refuses to change. The narcissist is inflexible and unteachable. That is by their choice. That makes their depraved and their terrible behavior all the more unacceptable and all the more evil. The narc no longer has any excuses for what they do. Yes the narc is fully responsible for all that they have done throughout their lives and they owe each and every one of their victims a heartfelt apology and the payment of compensation, with interest, for all that they have done. God and God alone can take away that debt. But the narc had better have a genuine conversion. Thank you for watching. Comments are welcomed. Peace be with you.