{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Essais", "icon": "https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/12e31d00151d2255969b78358ab56b18?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fmicro.blog%2Fimages%2Fblank_avatar.png", "home_page_url": "https://henrymadaga.com/", "feed_url": "https://henrymadaga.com/feed.json", "items": [ { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/08/finished-reading-essayism-on-form/", "content_html": "\n

Finished reading: Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction by Brian Dillon 📚

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Very short, compact, and good!

\n", "date_published": "2026-08-08T12:28:45+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/08/finished-reading-essayism-on-form/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/07/brian-dillon-essayism-on-being/", "content_html": "

Brian Dillon, Essayism:

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“On Being Ill” concludes with a vision of Lady Waterford and her overactive husband, leaving the reader wondering how precisely Woolf has got us here:

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Off he would ride again, stately as a crusader, to hunt the fox, and shewould wave to him and think each time, what if this should be the last?And so it was, that winter’s morning; his horse stumbled; he waskilled. She knew it before they told her, and never could Sir John Leslie forget, when he ran downstairs on the day of the burial, the beauty of the great lady standing to see the hearse depart, nor, when he came back, how the curtain, heavy, mid-Victorian, plush perhaps, was all crushed together where she had grasped it in her agony.

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I too have wondered what that was up to. A little nice to know so are a few others.

\n", "date_published": "2026-08-07T22:50:46+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/07/brian-dillon-essayism-on-being/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/05/currently-reading-long-loneliness-by/", "content_html": "\n

Currently reading: Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day 📚

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Dorothy Day:

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I had bought a small phonograph for a dollar down and a dollar a week, plunging at once into installement buying, that plague of the poor, that dishonesty by which the poor are robbed of their meager earnings

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\n", "date_published": "2026-08-05T23:02:37+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/05/currently-reading-long-loneliness-by/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/05/forgetting-to-say-what-you/", "title": "forgetting to say what you want to say", "content_html": "

Here is Adorno in the fragment titled “Memento”:

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A first precaution for writers: in every text, every piece, every paragraph to check whether the central motif stands out clearly enough. Anyone wishing to express something is so carried away by it that he ceases to reflect on it. Too close to his intention, “in his thoughts,”he forgets to say what he wants to say.

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From Brian Dillons Essayism\n📝📚

\n\n", "date_published": "2026-08-05T21:43:30+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/05/forgetting-to-say-what-you/", "tags": ["Reading and Literature"] }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/05/during-a-class-theres-the/", "content_html": "

During a class, there’s the temptation to let your attention lapse and not make effort to understand a concept during the moment when it’s being taught as it seems so hard and taxing to get. So you promise yourself to revisit it personally. Or when you miss an online class hoping to watch the recording later. These are lies one must fight not to deceive himself with.

\n", "date_published": "2026-08-05T18:19:57+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/05/during-a-class-theres-the/", "tags": ["Medical School"] }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/05/today-we-were-at-mbagathi/", "content_html": "

Today we were at Mbagathi County Referral Hospital, the third day of our ‘Child Health’ week. The discussion was on Nutrition. Mbagathi mostly serves people from Kibera and Rongai. That is, people from slums, with a very low socioeconomic status. That means access to health care is a challenge when they have to pay for it. The families of the malnourished children used to receive food baskets some time ago, but that was very long ago. Now, there’s the worry that they might end up selling the RUTF(Ready To Use Therapeutic Food) that is used to treat malnutrition just so to get money that perhaps can feed the entire household. Much effort ought to be made to make sure the most basic medical care is available for all patients despite socioeconomic status. But whose effort?

\n", "date_published": "2026-08-05T18:17:16+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/05/today-we-were-at-mbagathi/", "tags": ["Medical School"] }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/01/aaron-labaree-witgensttein-i-sit/", "content_html": "

Aaron Labaree:

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Witgensttein: “I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse’s good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.”

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Me too, man.

\n", "date_published": "2026-08-01T18:55:31+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/01/aaron-labaree-witgensttein-i-sit/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/01/two-reviews-of-vladimir-nabokovs/", "content_html": "

Two reviews of Vladimir Nabokov’s Mary

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  1. \n

    Daniel Moran

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    2. \n
  2. \n

    Aaron Labaree

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    3. \n
\n", "date_published": "2026-08-01T18:41:16+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/01/two-reviews-of-vladimir-nabokovs/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/01/finished-reading-mary-by-vladimir/", "content_html": "\n

Finished reading: Mary by Vladimir Nabokov 📚

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Huh! 😭

\n", "date_published": "2026-08-01T18:20:52+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/01/finished-reading-mary-by-vladimir/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/01/for-this-years-girlfriends-day/", "content_html": "

For this year’s Girlfriends' Day, I wrote this article on my Substack

\n\"\"\n", "date_published": "2026-08-01T14:24:09+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/01/for-this-years-girlfriends-day/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/08/01/currently-reading-mary-by-vladimir/", "content_html": "\n

Currently reading: Mary by Vladimir Nabokov 📚

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There’s something strangely familiar about how most of the the Russian writers talk about love, first love especially. This too just somehow sits on the same spectrum as Ivan Turgenev’s First Love and Dostoevsky’s White Nights. It is good🔥 In fact, so good, I just might have to read it again as I feel there’s a bit I am missing on this first read.

\n", "date_published": "2026-08-01T11:10:54+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/08/01/currently-reading-mary-by-vladimir/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/31/my-august-reading/", "content_html": "

My August Reading

\n\"\"\n", "date_published": "2026-07-31T21:17:27+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/31/my-august-reading/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/30/a-troubling-passage-about-narcissism/", "title": "A troubling passage about narcissism: Grandiose Narcissists vs Vulnerable Narcissists​", "content_html": "

From Rob Henderson's The Logic of Envy

In The New Science of Narcissism, the personality psychologist W. Keith Campbell describes two kinds of narcissists:

1. Grandiose narcissists: Dominant, extraverted, overconfident, exploitative, egotistical, low emotional distress. This is the version of narcissism people tend to be most familiar with.

2. Vulnerable narcissists: Self-centered, introverted, defensive, resentful, high emotional distress. Psychologists call them \"hidden\" narcissists because they don't self-promote the way the grandiose types do. Compared with grandiose narcissists, vulnerable narcissists are more susceptible to narcissistic injury.

Narcissistic injury occurs when a narcissist feels that their hidden, \"true self\" has been revealed—insecure, envious, deceitful, manipulative—they resent having a mirror held up to them. When their self-image is questioned, they react with rage.

Both grandiose and vulnerable narcissists hold high opinions of themselves and believe they deserve special treatment. Grandiose narcissists enjoy any kind of attention. Their positive self image is resistant to criticism. They always think they're amazing no matter what people say.

In contrast, vulnerable narcissists have mixed feelings about seeking attention. They are overly excited at the prospect of positive feedback. But excessively sensitive to negative feedback. They have a high opinion of themselves, though this opinion can be thwarted if the external world does not validate it. Both types of narcissists tend to be exploitative and see themselves as superior in some way.

Compared to grandiose narcissists, vulnerable narcissists are more sensitive to insults, ruminate more about perceived unfairness, and report more anger when they do not receive what they think they deserve. Although vulnerable narcissists require external feedback to maintain their sense of self, they are often dissatisfied with the feedback they receive. They repeatedly feel hurt that others do not recognize the extraordinary extent of their supposed suffering or acknowledge their specialness as a result of that suffering. Thus, vulnerable narcissists must balance the ledger and take revenge. The typical grandiose narcissist is a wolf in wolf's clothing. You can spot him a mile away. But the vulnerable narcissist is a wolf in sheep's clothing. They often fabricate a series of constructed personae that mask their emptiness, in the service of extracting social, sexual, or material rewards from their environments. Still, they are extremely attentive to others. But only to the extent that such attention is directed at themselves. Their capacity for empathy is compromised due to their envy, self-denigration, and extreme self preoccupation. Unlike grandiose narcissists, vulnerable narcissists are capable of guilt, often caused by awareness of their shallowness and lack of concern for others.

Grandiose narcissists desire omnipotence more than omniscience. Vulnerable narcissists seek omniscience in the absence of omnipotence.

Vulnerable narcissists experience a sense of mastery and control by getting satisfaction from self-pitying feelings of being wronged. This gives them permission to seek revenge, or as Teach might say, balance the ledger.

Teach: \"Your problem is envy, not greed, and when you claim to care about others you should check to see if it's not in order to deprive someone else. Because it is.\"

As an aside, he claims that if someone convinced the rich to willingly part with 50% of their wealth, you would not be satisfied. It wouldn't count. But if someone took 10% of their wealth over their protests, then you would be satisfied. That counts.

Teach claims that men believe that when women are drunk, their real desires come out. And women believe that when men are drunk, they become a different man.

Therefore, if both are drunk, the real her slept with a different man.

He thinks he's sleeping with the real her, which means all those other times she was pretending to be someone else. And the real her slept with a different man. Which means, in his mind, the ledger must be balanced.

These are the kind of mind games Teach says you have with yourself.

Interestingly, research indicates that although vulnerable narcissists have grandiose fantasies, they are usually not expressed or acted upon. Their narcissistic pursuits are performed on a fantasy level, imagining themselves to be doing great things while accomplishing nothing in the real world.

These types of narcissists suffer from shame because of their strong wish to exhibit themselves, and guilt because of their awareness of their inability to care for other people. But they don't change and start caring or at least pretend to care. Teach might say that the guilt is the excuse they need to then deprive others of their care.

\"How dare you make me feel like I'm inadequate for treating you poorly. That serves as evidence that I was right to treat you that way.\"

Vulnerable narcissists hide their aspirations and often appear modest and uninterested in social success. They react with shame or rage when their lofty ambitions are revealed and feel anxious when their exhibitionistic desires are exposed.

They are preoccupied with fantasies of glory and fame, and believe they can only be understood by high-status people.

Still, their awareness of their gap between their ambitions and their inability to act causes intense self-criticism. It evokes deep feelings of inferiority and shame. And even if a vulnerable narcissist has in fact accomplished great things, they are often unable to appreciate their own achievements.

Vulnerable narcissists frequently experience fury when they see a grandiose narcissist. \"How dare they act on their desires while I cannot.\" They use fear and guilt-trips as a means to manipulate others.

While grandiose narcissists are less likely than average to experience envy (probably because they think they're already great, no need to envy anyone else) vulnerable narcissists are far more likely than average to experience envy.

As the psychologist Jonathan Shedler has written, \"It is not sufficient for the malignant narcissist to feel important and special; it is necessary for someone else to be demeaned and vanquished...Other people are used and discarded without remorse...disastrous outcomes are always someone else's fault.\"

In an intriguing post on the difference between narcissism and psychopathy, The Last Psychiatrist wrote:

\"Both feel aggression, but the narcissist takes that aggression and makes it a part of who he is: I am aggressive, I am an aggressor. The psychopath lacks a properly defined ego. He's not an aggressor; aggression is simply an as needed tool, a means to an end. For the narcissist, violence is a volitional expression of rage, or the response to a narcissistic injury. If he doesn't get the affirmation he needs; if something threatens his identity, then he attacks. The psychopath is utilitarian: I needed a burger, you had it, so I stabbed you in the throat. Whatever. As bad as that sounds, here's the narcissist's discourse on the same crime: I needed a burger, you had it, so I stabbed you in the throat. But wait, that's not the whole story, listen, what I did was justified because...\"

And \"Narcissists appear to have emotions—they cry, laugh, feel your pain, etc—but none of this is real. They don't feel it. They're crying at the funeral, for sure, but on the inside they're wondering why it doesn't hurt as much as they think it should…A narcissist is a psychopath who has assimilated the emotions of the character he is playing...The reason a psychopath kills is because he is bad. The reason a narcissist kills is so that no one finds out he is bad.\"

Psychopaths (and grandiose narcissists) favor power. Vulnerable narcissists favor status.

A psychopath would rather hold a relatively less prestigious but high powered position (e.g., prime minister).

A vulnerable narcissist would rather be the ceremonial head of state (monarch). Validation and recognition minus actual power. In fact, a vulnerable narcissist would willingly give up their power in order to have status.

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-30T19:34:41+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/30/a-troubling-passage-about-narcissism/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/30/a-sermon-by-charles-spurgeon/", "content_html": "

A sermon by Charles Spurgeon on the Deceitfulness of Sin

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-30T13:41:34+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/30/a-sermon-by-charles-spurgeon/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/28/wangari-maathai/", "content_html": "

Wangari Maathai:

\n\"\"\n", "date_published": "2026-07-28T18:16:42+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/28/wangari-maathai/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/28/finished-reading-unbowed-by-wangari/", "content_html": "\n

Finished reading: Unbowed by Wangari Maathai 📚\n🔥

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-28T18:14:49+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/28/finished-reading-unbowed-by-wangari/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/25/just-finished-watching-panchayat-se/", "content_html": "\n

Just finished watching: Panchayat S1E4, Hamara Neta Kaisa Ho? 📺\nReally good, and funny!

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-25T20:10:15+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/25/just-finished-watching-panchayat-se/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/25/i-find-this-interesting-first/", "content_html": "

I find this interesting, First Things About page:

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The Institute on Religion and Public Life is a 501(c)3 organization and the publisher of First Things. It was founded in 1989 by Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor who later became a Catholic priest.

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-25T18:57:43+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/25/i-find-this-interesting-first/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/25/i-have-often-felt-that/", "content_html": "

I have often felt that I am plagued by a kind of inferiority complex. I feel, however, that the inferiority complex is paradoxically related to how I regard myself too highly than I ought to do.

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-25T18:53:05+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/25/i-have-often-felt-that/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/25/currently-reading-unbowed-by-wangari/", "content_html": "\n

Currently reading: Unbowed by Wangari Maathai 📚 I thought I knew Wangari Maathai. But now I know it amounted to nothing more than that she won the Nobel Peace Prize and that she loved trees. I would have said she was an environmentalist rather than that ‘she loved trees’ but I have never thought properly of her as the enviromentalist that she in fact was. Her memoir is helping me so much. I am seeing, getting to know, and appreciate way more than I knew about Wangari Maathai. Why did I not read this book, and this sort of books, sooner?

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-25T18:51:10+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/25/currently-reading-unbowed-by-wangari/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/25/one-of-the-as-it/", "content_html": "

One of the, as it seems to me, most important lessons I am learning writing online, is how to use the appropriate tone. I have noted that my tone is often too preachy and stern than is appropriate. I feel it would be much better if I sounded much more friendlier and approachable. I should perhaps investigate how one gets his tone, but I am pretty sure it is coloured heavily by the sort of thing one reads, and the sort of way one thinks about his audience. I have so much to learn. And, grow.

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-25T18:46:39+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/25/one-of-the-as-it/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/25/i-think-this-one-here/", "content_html": "

I think this one here is such a wonderful piece. The Long way!

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-25T18:42:10+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/25/i-think-this-one-here/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/25/heres-a-post-on-substack/", "content_html": "

Here’s a post on Substack: The hitter can never be judge

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-25T16:30:32+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/25/heres-a-post-on-substack/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/23/currently-reading-house-of-the/", "content_html": "\n

Currently reading: House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende 📚

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What really is the word to describe this kind of narration style? And then to know just how much a matter is an obvious lie, yet still love and enjoy, even believe, it.

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-23T13:56:40+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/23/currently-reading-house-of-the/" }, { "id": "http://madaga.micro.blog/2026/07/22/currently-watching-the-house-of/", "content_html": "\n

Currently watching: The House of the Spirits S1E1, Rosa the Beautiful 🍿

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I feel it will be wiser to stop and read the book first. Something has always gotten in the way of my reading the book, but this time round I feel particularly hopeful.

\n", "date_published": "2026-07-22T17:16:55+03:00", "url": "https://henrymadaga.com/2026/07/22/currently-watching-the-house-of/" } ] }