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Why do I make everything about me?

You listen to a friend describe her new job. Within two sentences, the topic shifts to your first week at a different place. A relative mentions a difficult diagnosis, and you find yourself recounting a similar experience from your own family. You notice the pattern only later, on the way home, when you replay the conversation and realize you were the center of it all.

Fireworks for a wedding

In “The Remarkable Rocket,” part of The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), Oscar Wilde sets the scene at a royal wedding. Fireworks are arranged in the palace garden, waiting for midnight. One tall rocket has an exceptionally high opinion of himself.

While other fireworks discuss the bride or the view, this one talks about his lineage, his abilities, and how fortunate the prince was to marry on the day he was launched. Then he begins to cry. He explains why:

“No one in the whole world is so sensitive as I am, I am quite sure of that.”

— Oscar Wilde, “The Remarkable Rocket,” The Happy Prince and Other Tales, 1888

A ditch and an audience of ducks

His tears dampen his powder. When the others fly up, he remains on the ground until the next morning, when workers toss him over the wall into a ditch. He decides he has been sent there for his health. A frog, a duck, and a dragonfly pass by, and he lectures each one about himself. He tells the duck he was made for public life, then admits he has never actually appeared in it.

Wilde writes this as comedy, and it is funny. The rocket never asks the duck a single question. Every scene, from the wedding to the ditch, becomes a stage with him on it.

Who is in the story

The rocket is not cruel. He seems almost frightened that the evening could continue without him. A wedding where he is just one firework among many is a wedding where he might go unnoticed. So he claims to be the most sensitive one, whose feelings require attention.

Turning a conversation toward yourself can work the same way. When someone else’s news fills the room, sharing your own version keeps you in the conversation.

The last word

Two boys light a fire with the rocket. He finally explodes with all the noise he promised, but the boys have fallen asleep and no one hears it. His final thought is that he knew he would create a great sensation.

If this conversation stays about the other person, what am I afraid of losing?

Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.

About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy

This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.