We are all Narcissus deep down.

Have you ever before met that egocentric person who always subconsciously steers the conversation to him-/herself? Like when I mentioned it’s depressingly freezing here in Melbourne they would immediately respond that it’s sweltering in Hong Kong. And when I said I felt sleepy as I woke up early on a wintery morning to commute to Mornington, the egocentric would say it’s routine for them to wake up early for work and only sleep for a few hours. When I said I have established a lot in Hong Kong they would reflect that they have done the same things in Melbourne and so would not contemplate going back to Hong Kong. And when I said I was tired they would launch into a detailed account of how they "out-tired" me.

That is not sharing or an exchange of words. It’s just a monologue.

That sense of self preoccupation is no secret to us yet remains an evolutionary mystery (at least to me!) in a highly socialized community where race survival partly hinges on communication. But now I’m puzzled, is understanding or a two-way communication essential to human evolution or existence or is it just some luxurious concept that happens to pop up in some modern human societies where hunger and warmth are no longer pressing issues?

We all too conveniently use our own experience as a yardstick for measuring others’ happiness, problems, distress, and simply, life. That’s why we are programmed to compare, using ourselves as the baseline.

We never know how well or crappy we fare until we compare ourselves against others. That sense of comparison is innate in human nature. That’s why we succumb to peer pressures when we are young and social pressure as we grow old. While suckers are often encouraged to compare themselves against those living in the Third World or the most deprived spots on earth or this, such kind of comparison can be quite pathetic sometimes as our self-esteem and life satisfaction tends to build on others’ misfortune.

While downward social comparison makes us feel happy and protects our ego, upward social comparison keeps our society in an upward swirl of material development or achievement (that’s how that freaky Guinness World Records thingy comes into existence - though I can never make out whether it's for upward or downward comparison). Think the building next country is higher than ours? Build an even higher one!

It seems that comparison, both upward and downward, alone can make us happy and motivated and keep our society advancing materially. Maybe that’s why we’re all Narcissus by default; that we perceive the world in our own biased way without knowing that there's a blind spot in our view; and that what we see in others is just a reflection of our own ego. So where does understanding and empathy come into play? They seem to be learned skills though not many people pick up a lot along the way.