THE DISEASE OF SELF-IMPORTANCE: A CHRONICLE OF PEACOCKS IN A PANIC ROOM

Image by Martin Foskett / Knelstrom Media

It was 6:42 a.m., and I was neck-deep in a lukewarm puddle of Weetabix. Rain slapped the kitchen window like an unpaid bookie with a vendetta, and my wife was murmuring half-formed threats at the toaster. The cat, bloated with delusions of divine entitlement, had pissed in my shoe again. A Tuesday, then. I fired up the laptop with a kind of wounded resolve, the kind you see on the faces of old prize-fighters or junior civil servants. Something foul was in the air. Not just the cat. No, this was the acrid stench of unearned significance. The creeping rot of self-importance.

And it dawned on me then, in a damp dressing gown, tea in hand, staring at a nation of LinkedIn warriors and attention junkies clawing through cyberspace like rats in a social media colosseum, that most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.
Let's begin at the shallow end.
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You know the type. Barry from HR with a Bluetooth headset welded to his skull and a belief that ordering printer ink on time makes him the spinal column of Western democracy. Sheila, who starts every sentence with "As a mother," as though her womb is a UN-accredited think tank. Or Clive, the self-appointed COVID marshal who once threatened a pensioner with a traffic cone because her mask slipped below her nose. These people aren't villains in the grand, moustache-twirling sense. They're just intoxicated by their own reflection. Peacocks with spreadsheets.

But scale it up, and that's where the absolute carnage starts.

THE GLOBAL STAGE: A CIRCUS OF NARCISSISTS

Look at the geopolitical landscape. It's not being shaped by men or women of wisdom or tempered vision. No, it's an ego-thumping karaoke contest judged by publicists with nervous breakdowns.

There's Keir Starmer, Britain's beige response to every crisis. A man who could make fire seem boring. He's convinced himself he's a statesman, but the reality is he delivers passion with all the gusto of a damp cloth in a drafty room. He wants to be important so severely that he's fashioned himself into a political screensaver, constantly on, rarely noticed.

Then you've got Friedrich Merz, Germany's answer to the phrase "synergy audit." He moves like an executive action figure, slick, calculated, and always within arm's reach of a spreadsheet. There's ambition in his eyes and Excel in his bloodstream. He doesn't want to govern; he wants to present quarterly earnings at the G20 and be applauded for it.

And now striding in, clipboard in hand and NATO in her handbag, is Kaja Kallas. Estonia's Iron Tulip. She smiles like she's just cornered you with facts in five languages. A Cold War revivalist with TikTok charisma, she's the type who'd enforce a cyber blockade before you've finished your espresso. And make no mistake, she doesn't want to be just Prime Minister. She wants to be the voice of the free world, or at the very least the regionally syndicated podcast version.

It's not power they crave. Not really. It's attention. Adulation. Statues and stadiums. They want to be etched in history, not for doing anything good, but for being noticed. And when you crave importance over principle, you'll burn the world to be seen in the flames.

OFFICE POLITICS IS JUST WAR IN A BAD SUIT

At the grassroots level, your average regional council, your parish meetings, your Facebook mums group, there lurks a deeper, more insidious kind of self-importance. The kind that can't launch missiles but will happily ruin lives over hedge height regulations or allotment disputes.

The local big shot. He might run a rotary club or a vape shop, but in his mind, he's the Sultan of Swindon. You dare challenge his monopoly on community barbecues, and he'll orchestrate a whisper campaign that would make Stalin blush.

We are ruled, not governed, by people who mistake visibility for virtue. And it's contagious.

Social media? A buffet of this disease. Every post is a performance, every selfie a sermon. "Look at me!" is the silent scream echoing from every filtered face. You can't just enjoy a sandwich anymore; it has to be an artisan sourdough expression of your inner journey. Even grief has become a branding opportunity.
We've replaced God with followers, saints with influencers, and humility with hashtags.

THE PROFOUND DANGER OF THE UNREMARKABLE TRYING TO MATTER

The most dangerous people aren't always the ones with guns or mandates. They're often the ones who've been ignored too long.

A man who feels invisible will do anything to cast a shadow. A woman who feels overlooked might burn down the room just to warm her hands. And the world is increasingly filled with these people: the slighted, the side-lined, the ones who mistake silence for insignificance and then explode across the timeline like a glitter bomb filled with spite.

Wars are started not by need, but by pride.

Cults are formed not from doctrine, but from daddy issues and a yearning to be obeyed.

Movements collapse when the mission becomes less important than the individual.

Self-importance is the parasite. It latches onto the host, inflates their sense of destiny, and then drives them to infect others with that same illusion. "I must be heard." "I must be seen." "I must matter." Never mind that their message is as empty as a politician's promises; what matters is that it's theirs.

THE IRONY: THE MORE YOU WANT TO MATTER, THE LESS YOU DO

The truly important people rarely act as if they are. The nurse is wiping vomit off the floor at 2 a.m. The lorry driver hauling produce through floods. The software engineer who quietly prevents a banking crash while eating a Tesco meal deal in the car park. These people are essential, but they don't go live on Instagram to share that.
True importance doesn't scream. It acts.

However, society no longer rewards quiet dignity. We give medals to noise, from fame to tantrums. And power to those who should never be left alone with a kazoo, let alone a country.

WHAT DO WE DO WITH ALL THIS?

Well, I don't have answers. I'm not that sort of journalist. I'm the sort who observes from the side lines with a whiskey in one hand and a damp copy of Private Eye in the other. But I suspect the cure lies somewhere between radical humility and a hard slap with a wet sock.

We need to teach people that it's fine to be small. To be quiet. To not trend.

That dignity doesn't need documentation. Greatness isn't in being known; it's in being useful.

And until we do, we'll keep mistaking peacocks for prophets.

And the trouble, my friend, will keep coming, dressed in a suit, smelling of cologne, and armed with a TED Talk.