Quoting Ernest Becker from his The Denial of Death: "In man a working level of narcissism is inseparable from self-esteem, from a basic sense of self-worth. Hi

Quoting Ernest Becker from his The Denial of Death: "In man a working level of narcissism is inseparable from self-esteem, from a basic sense of self-worth. His sense of self-worth is constituted symbolically, his cherished narcissism feeds on symbols, on an abstract idea of his own worth, an idea composed of words, sounds and images, in the air, in the mind, on paper." "It is natural for a man to strive to be a hero, it goes deeply in his evolutionary and organismic constitution, and yet the society gets chills when someone admits the honesty of it." In academia if you have not convinced yourself that the problem you are working on is "the most" important problem to be worked on, how else would you go on working on it each single day and night with low salary while your counterparts live luxuriously in industry? I think its just a (un)conscious strategy but I can only speak for myself.