President Trump is about five years older than I am. In our 70s, most people in my experience begin to realize that life isn't forever. We really are just visitors on earth. We aren't permanent residents. This reality check usually leads to some level of introspection and a calming of one's driving passions, whatever they might be, because, after all, the bus is leaving pretty soon now and we won't be coming back. Some people call this "wisdom" but it might be seen as "clarity" or "perspective " or even a kind of "peace". I see none of this in Mr. Trump. Just not there. He acts as if his wishes and impulses are all that matter ever to everyone. I don't get it. Is he really that emotionally crippled?
Don't forget that Trump does not have a normal personality. He's a narcissist. Introspection is not really possible or extremely rare for a narcissist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
The first narcissist that I ever knew I thought was weird and had to be unique. I then read some about NPD and got to know another narcissist. What amazed me about it was that they were so similar and alike. Of course, there were differences but the similarities is what really struck me. Self-awareness and introspection in Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) quote: Self-awareness and self-acceptance in narcissism “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23) If the narcissist becomes self-aware, if he accepts that he is a narcissist, isn’t this the first, important step, towards healing? Answer: Narcissism defines the narcissist’s waking moments and his nocturnal dreams. It is all-pervasive. Everything the narcissist does is motivated by it. Everything he avoids is its result. Every utterance, decision, his very body language - are all manifestations of narcissism. It is rather like being abducted by an alien and ruthlessly indoctrinated ever since. The alien is the narcissist’s False Self - a defence mechanism constructed in order to shield his True Self from hurt and inevitable abandonment. Cognitive understanding of the disorder does not constitute a transforming Insight. In other words, it has no emotional correlate. The narcissist does not Internalize what he understands and learns about his disorder. This new gained knowledge does not become a motivating part of the narcissist. It remains an inert and indifferent piece of knowledge, with minor influence on the narcissist’s psyche. ... Introspection in Pathological Narcissism ... The narcissist’s introspection is a futile and arid exercise at bookkeeping, a soulless bureaucracy of the psyche and, in its own way, even more chilling that the alternative: a narcissist blissfully unaware of his own disorder. https://www.neuroscigroup.us/articles/APT-5-126.php
I have read that narcissists never or almost never get much better. They cannot comprehend the idea that there is any other way of existence. This is due in large part to their inability at introspection and self-awareness. Everything I've ever read about people ever "recovering" from or even getting significantly better from NPD is that it just doesn't really happen. Another inability that defines NPD is the inability for empathy. For example, a woman with NPD worked for me. She had a young son about 9 years old. My daughter gave him violin lessons. He very rarely spoke. If I asked him anything his response was only one or two words. The NPD lady told me how she had to be careful where she hit him because if the school saw bruises then they would hassle her about them. I asked why she hit him. She said, "Well for example, I'm trying to order our dinner at the fast food drive through ordering station and he interrupted me and said he wanted something else." It was her own son but she had zero empathy for him.
A friend of my told me this story: "In Balzac’s novel Eugénie Grandet, there is a reference to ‘the idea that had once cost Alcibiades’ dog tail’. What was that idea? In fifth-century BCE Athens, one of the most controversial generals and politicians was an aristocrat called Alcibiades, who had a pet dog. Alcibiades had a dog ‘of wonderful size and shape’ which had cost him 70 minas (7000 drachmas). He had its tail docked. His friends thought he was mad, and said everyone was saying how stupid this was, and what a bad owner Alcibiades must be. But Alcibiades just laughed. He said, ‘That’s just what I want. I want the Athenians to talk about this, so they won’t say something worse about me, (So I'll in a meanwhile do what I need)’. And while they were busy talking about this incident, he did what he needed for weeks without many obstacles and gossip. So the dog could have been a useful, if only a short-term, distraction from the gossip. It is so famous that a 2nd century CE sculpture of a dog with a docked tail – twice life-size – was dubbed ‘the dog of Alcibiades’ when Henry Jennings picked it up for £80 when he was visiting Rome in the middle of the 18th century." So can some of those be diversions or maybe things will be achieved, time will show, when I don't know. What ever happened to 2nd Las Vegas that was talked about in 2018 meeting with N. Kora Kim? Was this also an Alcibiades’ dog tail? I don't know.
