Echo

According to Greek mythology, whenever we hear an echo ..it is the spirit of a woodland nymph named Echo calling back to us. When Echo was alive, the Greek goddess Hera cast a spell on her for committing the crime of talking too much. Her punishment ..she could no longer speak for herself ..instead, she could only repeat the last two words that someone else said. I had not heard this story before ..not until the other day when my niece Karla read it aloud for me. I thought it demonstrated the value of being a good listener ..so, I told Karla it was a good story and that I liked it very much. Today her mother tells me that she is having trouble convincing Karla where echoes really come from. Sound waves bouncing back. It has become like a major battle. Apparently Karla is having difficulty believing the real reason for echoes because she got the story version, first, out of a ‘text book’. I had no idea that I had reinforced this misconception. The story goes on to describe the character Narcissus ..where we get the term narcissism ..because he could only hear his own words repeated back to him by Echo. I’m just afraid that someday we are going to have to explain to Karla the psychiatric term ‘narcissistic personality’ by referring to the same myth that we are trying to explode today.

Note: Lisa Marie Nowak, the astronaut who drove cross country to whack her love rival last February, was diagnosed with a ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. My opinion about that can be found here ~~>Personality disorder