Narcissus: fear of inadequacy

For the MZ womb twin survivor, a deeply-felt fear is of being weak and inadequate, unable to cope.  The only way to be safe is to be utterly strong, to the point of omnipotence.  Basically, it is better to be the dominant one, the No 1 in any given situation, than to be No 2.

I observed two people in conversation - if you can call it that. It was more of a duel than an equal sharing of ideas.  The first, a man, mentioned a terrifying experience involving snow in late May in the mountains of southern France. At once, sooner than acknowledge that snow at that time of the year would be unexpected and doubtless alarming, the other, a woman, was quick to point out that on her recent trip to Colorado there had been snow in July, three feet deep.

I was conscious that this was combat, not conversation. This kind of "How deep is your snow?" competition can be readily observed, as it morphs readily into " How clever is your child?" between parents or "How painful is your back?"  among older people.

I wondered why such competitive behavior was chosen, and what  pay-off there may be.  But then I thought about MZ womb twin survivors, who carry somewhere in the back of their minds a memory of half of them being so weak and inadequate that they were  unable to survive at all.  Then it was clear to me that this kind of competitive behavior is not just a little light-hearted banter, but a matter of life and death.

Steve Jobs RIP - dare to be different

Steve Jobs, the quiet genius behind Apple and the man who made Mac users of so many of us, (including my whole family) dared to think differently. He has died quietly, as he lived, but he leaves a giant hole in the world.

Obama says he was "Brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it." Steve Jobs had Alpha energy and he used it.

Womb twin survivors are born different and it can feel tough to be an outsider, misunderstood. However the very fact of being different, thinking differently, is a great gift.

The Alpha-Beta gap

After the in-depth consideration of MZ twins, I have adopted the concept of an "Alpha- Beta gap."
This is used to describe the difference between the person you know you could be and the person you are ; in other words, the difference between your authentic and your  in-authentic self.  The Womb twin hypothesis states that womb twin survivors constantly re-enact the life and death of their womb twins. To re-enact the life of your MZ womb twin, who is half of you and made of the same genetic material,  you also re-enact the difference between you. "The person you could be" is your whole Alpha self, but the "person you are" is someone diminished by the need to keep alive your Beta womb twin on your  life.  But that varies according to what actually happened.