Narcissus

The Alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The Alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

"Why do you weep?" the goddesses asked.

"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."

"but... was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.

"Who better than you to know that?" the goddesses said in wonder. "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!"

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:

"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

"What a lovely story," the Alchemist thought.

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
------------------------------------------------------
Original version the parable taught us the sufferings of narcissism, an extreme obsession of appreciating one's own beauty. But this modified version of the classic parable has a much different lesson to teach, it teaches how beauty is contemplated through another’s beauty. Narcissus looked onto the lake in order to see his own beauty, but in return the lake looked onto Narcissus to see its own beauty too. Was Narcissus or the Lake narcissistic? In this version,they weren’t. Narcissism is an extreme obsession of oneself, an intense self-worship, where the person completely disregards every beauty and only cares about themselves. A narcissistic persons are blinded by their own self-obsession so much that they are unable to see other’s beauty. Narcissists do not really find their true beauty either,instead they are obsessed with trying to find their own beauty. In that process they completely ignore every true beauty in the world. But in this story neither Narcissus nor the Lake are true narcissists because knowingly or unknowingly they accepted and showed each others beauty and could see their own beauty too. This story says something important about ourselves, about how we see ourselves through the reflections from everything around us. The story is trying to teach us a very important lesson and that "the only way to see your own true beauty is to appreciate another’s".