Narcissism: Why Is Enough Never Enough?
The Red Queen has everything arranged exactly as she wants it.
Everyone complies.
Nobody challenges her.
The roses are being painted red. The work is being done. Her instructions are being followed.
She has won.
So why isn’t she satisfied?
Winning Is Not the Same as Having Won
This is where the Red Queen gives us an interesting way of thinking about narcissism.
Imagine somebody wants something from you.
You comply.
They get what they wanted.
For a while, perhaps, everything is fine.
But then another requirement appears.
So you comply again.
Then something else is required.
And something else.
It can leave the people around them wondering:
What would actually be enough?
Perhaps the answer is uncomfortable.
There may not be an enough.
Because having won and winning are not the same experience.
Having won is a state.
It is finished.
The medal is already on the shelf.
But winning is an event.
It can happen again.
There can be another demand, another contest, another opportunity to prevail, another demonstration that:
My wishes matter more than yours.
And once we see that distinction, something about the Red Queen begins to make sense.
The Self-Renewing Requirement
We need to be careful here.
This does not mean somebody is consciously sitting down and planning:
Right. I’ve won that one. Now I need to manufacture another victory.
Human behaviour doesn’t need to be consciously planned in order to form a pattern.
A better way of thinking about it may be as a self-renewing requirement.
Something produces the desired experience.
But the experience doesn’t last.
So it has to be produced again.
Admiration may need to be renewed.
Attention may need to be renewed.
Superiority may need to be renewed.
Control may need to be renewed.
The experience of prevailing may need to be renewed.
Yesterday’s success cannot permanently satisfy today’s requirement.
And this is where people around someone with strong narcissistic traits can become confused.
They may reasonably assume that compliance should bring the matter to an end.
I’ve done what you wanted. Surely we’re finished now?
But if the underlying requirement renews, compliance cannot finish the job.
There will always be another rose to paint.
Why Compliance Doesn’t Solve It
This creates a peculiar problem.
Suppose everybody finally does exactly what the Red Queen wants.
Nobody disagrees.
Nobody challenges her.
Nobody refuses.
She has complete compliance.
You might imagine that this would produce complete satisfaction.
But what happens to winning when there is nothing left to win?
The victory is over.
It has become ordinary.
And if the experience of prevailing is what matters, another opportunity for that experience will eventually be needed.
This helps explain why somebody can apparently get exactly what they demanded and yet remain dissatisfied.
The mistake those around them may make is assuming:
If I can finally give them enough, this will stop.
But you cannot permanently satisfy a self-renewing requirement with a previous success.
The People Painting the Roses
And this is where the playing cards matter.
They are everywhere.
Painting.
Carrying.
Running.
Correcting.
Trying to meet the latest requirement.
The Queen isn’t painting roses.
Everybody else is.
That image captures something important about certain narcissistic relational structures.
The requirements of one person can gradually become the organising principle of everybody else’s behaviour.
How Did You End Up Holding the Paintbrush?
There is another reason this can be difficult to notice.
The more reasonable a request sounds, the less likely you are to question their right to make it.
If somebody asks for something obviously outrageous, we are likely to notice the demand itself.
But many demands are perfectly reasonable.
The roses do need watering.
The pots would be better cleared away.
The wall probably would look better painted.
So we start considering whether the task makes sense.
And while we are deciding whether the task is reasonable, we may completely miss another question:
Who put you in charge?
The hidden premise is not necessarily in the task.
It may be in the assumed right to assign it.
That is how somebody can find themselves painting the roses without ever consciously agreeing that the Red Queen had the authority to hand them a paintbrush.
People start anticipating.
Accommodating.
Avoiding displeasure.
Doing more.
Trying harder.
And perhaps believing that when they finally get everything right, there will be peace.
But there is a problem.
They are treating an insatiable requirement as though it were a finite task.
It isn’t.
You cannot finish painting the roses if another requirement can always be created.
“Enough” May Be the Wrong Question
This changes the question.
Instead of asking:
“What do I need to do for this person finally to be satisfied?”
we might ask:
“Is satisfaction actually capable of bringing this process to an end?”
Because sometimes the answer may be no.
Not because you haven’t tried hard enough.
Not because you haven’t found the correct combination.
And not necessarily because somebody is consciously designing an impossible game.
But because the requirement itself renews.
That is very different.
And once you see it, you may stop measuring your own performance against somebody else’s capacity to remain satisfied.
The Red Queen
Perhaps that is why the Red Queen is such a useful image.
She doesn’t simply want obedience.
She wants obedience again.
She doesn’t simply want to prevail.
She needs another opportunity to prevail.
She can have an entire kingdom running around painting roses red while she sits comfortably at the centre of it.
And still there will be something else.
Another instruction.
Another requirement.
Another contest.
Another rose.
So perhaps the most useful question isn’t:
“When will I finally have done enough?”
It is:
“What if there is no amount I can do that will turn an insatiable requirement into enough?”
Because if the requirement continually renews, the answer cannot be found by painting faster.
Sometimes you have to put down the bloody paintbrush. 👑