Just because I keep telling everyone that the latest brouhaha surrounding alleged Doctor Anthony Fauci isn't going to amount to anything doesn't mean I won't milk writing about it for all it's worth. Hey — even I enjoy a good political circus when it comes to town.
Also, I bring a unique perspective to the current situation. Writers and pundits have been commenting about the new revelations regarding the enormity of Fauci's ego, but there are few people on the planet who have a deep understanding of raging egomania like I do.
Anthony Fauci comes from a world that isn't supposed to involve public adulation. He spent his career as a cog in a part of the federal bureaucracy that has people who are tasked with keeping their noses down and making sure people don't die. His only rewards should have been a hefty taxpayer-funded salary and pension, along with the satisfaction of a job well done.
In the immortal words of the late, great Meat Loaf: two out of three ain't bad.
There is a difference between egocentrism and egomania, but I'm playing fast and loose with the rules and using them interchangeably. This is a goofy column, not a college Psychology class.
Fauci is a science nerd. They're not exactly to the spotlight born. Even the most accomplished among them remain largely unknown outside of their areas of expertise. Any non-physicist who can name the last five winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics is either a member of the committee or an unhinged stalker. It is true that Fauci was an athlete in high school, but it was back when slow, 5'7" white dudes could be basketball "stars." That doesn't count.
Most healthy egos are cultivated from birth. The feature image for this column is me at age two or three. You can tell that kid was never going to opt for a career path that was humble or quiet. It comes naturally to us throughout our lives.
Here's an example. At a political conference back in the Tea Party days, a bunch of us were hanging around a hotel suite and enjoying adult beverages one night. I was getting peppered with questions about some people in the movement who were making names for themselves. Those in the group who'd just met me were surprised that I didn't know any of them. A friend explained it this way: "In his world, there are two categories of people — Stephen Kruiser, and people who aren't Stephen Kruiser. He doesn't pay much attention to that second one." (One of my functions here is to trigger the socially constipated and pathologically humorless, so I'm sure that anecdote will rile up some Judgy McJudgersons.)
She gets me.
The over-the-top ego boost that Anthony Fauci enjoyed came to him late in life. That's why he responded to it like a teenaged girl with an unrequited crush. In his diary, he wasn't talking about what he did to get the attention, he just kept oozing, "AREN'T I PRETTY?" about the attention. It wasn't about how he got the attention, just about that he got the attention. Weak rookie stuff.
When a real egomaniac enters a room, he expects attention. When he gets it, it's just seen as the natural order of things. He doesn't tinkle with excitement, then run off to his Trapper Keeper to write about it. The attention was a given. Yeah, I keep a diary too, but I only chronicle how well I did or didn't do in a given professional situation. I don't write about what people feel about me.
I just assume they think I'm awesome, even on my off days.
Namaste.
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