Lightbulb jokes, narcissism and our species-be-doomed

I really like lightbulb jokes (I like cheese jokes too, but here I will focus on lightbulb jokes and you will thank me later).

I like the one “how many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?” Answer – only one but the lightbulb has to really want to change.

I like the one – possibly a little abstruse for people who grew up after the Cold War – “how many lightbulbs does it take to change a lightbulb?” Answer – none, comrade, the lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution!

I like the one – “how many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Answer – only two, but you have to get them in there first (you of course have to remember what lightbulbs WERE to get this one. I do.

I, I, I, I. This was on purpose (or am I lampshading my self-centredness?) Because the lightbulb joke that has done nicely for me on Bluesky over the last 24 hrs is this –

How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?

None, they prefer gaslighting.

It is a corker, isn’t it? Wish I could remember who I stole it off. For anyone who has had experience of narcissists (I had extended unfortunate interactions with two, and have brushed up against others often enough), this reminds them of all the times they were told “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.memory etc” because narcissists really can’t say the words (and mean them) “I was wrong. You were right. Sorry.” If they can’t find some bizarre excuse, they simply try to get you to distrust your own sensations and judgement (i.e. gaslighting).

It is very very exhausting, and I don’t have any advice, only sympathy, for people trapped in those situations without the ability to walk (or run!) away.

Not everyone who struggles with saying those words is a narcissist, I guess. But for me, the inability to hold your hands up and say “got that wrong, my bad” is kind of a brown M&Ms test (see here).

The cleverest narcissists learn how to fake self-deprecation, but if your spider senses are tingling, perhaps you oughta trust them??

Trouble is – and I don’t know how you would measure if it is worse now than in the past (though there is some work on self-centredness and literature – frequency of personal pronouns [maybe a myth?]) we seem to have tolerated institutions and organisations being captured wholesale by the worst narcissists who are incapable of admitting that we, at a species level are on the road to ruin with the pedal to the metal. Or they don’t are?

We are so fubarred