The verb ναρκαω (narkao) means to grow numb or stiff, either of limbs or hands, or of the mind and attention. It's the source of the English word narcosis. The noun ναρκη (narke) describes the electric eel or ray, whose touch renders the toucher quite numb and incapable of touching anything else.

These words are thought to stem from a Proto-Indo-European root "(s)ner" that appears to have had to do with wrapping, winding or snaring (which may explain the growing numb of a limb), even shrinking and shriveling. Our English word snare comes from the same root.

Significantly, the familiar word ναρκισσος (narkissos) describes a beguilingly sweet smelling flower but also the mythological character of the young man who fell in love with his own reflection in the water, and was otherwise numb to the goings on around him. It's not clear whether the flower was named after the boy or vice versa, or to which extend this story tries to convey the fundamental fallacy of an immature mind, namely the tendency to lean upon its own understanding rather than trust YHWH (see Proverbs 3:5).

Many modern philosophers believe that human consciousness entails the ability and tendency to attribute mental states to other people. This is called Folk Psychology. And these same philosophers count Folk Psychology as a virtue and further hold that it works very well. To people who are less shielded by the great and numbing walls of academic institutions (remember that most psychological theories come from observing rich western adolescent students who fearlessly volunteer for psychology experiments), most people are wrong about most other people and don't comprehend them at all, and make a mess of predicting other people. Folk Psychology assumes with great enthusiasm, but rarely verifies if the assumptions were correct. And when the outcome of a scenario is not at all alike what Folk Psychology predicted, they blame the other guys for being uppity and contrary and evil doing.

Outside academia, the world is rather obviously filled with people who don't get along with most anybody, and need therapy and medication to cope even with themselves. To such people, Folk Psychology (attributing mental states to others) is merely another tyrannical way of forcing the world into one's own image. Neurodivergent people routinely fail to correspond to the nonsense they get projected upon, and these are hence deemed dysfunctional, given a lower social score (which is euthanasia by proxy) and in certain societies carted off to concentration camps to be gassed on account of being anti-social (by people who are classified as social — see the absurdity?).

In more enlightened societies, what modern western philosophers call Folk Psychology and deem a universal quality of "normal" people, is deemed brutish, beastly and violently impolite. Children in such enlightened societies are taught to not give into the temptation to label other people by what we guess about them, but only form our opinion about others from what they themselves are willing to share, and this by means of deliberate verbal communication or clear visual symbols (like clothing). Such fortunate children are taught that below the clothing of our words — the words "text" and "textile" stem from the same PIE root meaning to weave — there sit our naked minds, and although everybody has a naked mind, we share that only with a select few, and it's improper and horrendously invasive to try to see through someone's words and onto their nakedness, let alone ring anybody who's simply trying to blend in just like anybody else but isn't very good at that or has poor taste.

Research into these topics shows that neurotypical people appear to be governed by deception more than neurodivergent people. All forms of injustice greatly upsets neurodivergent people, also because it is much harder to keep track of everybody's personal scheming than an environment in which everybody is predictable and acts consistently according to the signals sent and symbols sported. That's why, on average and in general, a neurotypical person will assume that behind the facade, there is scheming going on, whereas a neurodivergent person has no such suspicions (and gets taken advantage of, but that's beside the point right now).

In general and on average, when someone dresses like a pink flamingo, that person indicates to want to be treated like a pink flamingo, and enlightened people do that then (if no other costs are incurred). Neurotypical people will immediately push back and declare that wolves very often dress in sheep's clothing, and since wise people wisely avoid wolves, they therefore equally wisely avoid sheep. But that is not at all a logical chain of thought. It's not sheep that dress in sheep's clothing but shepherds. Wolves that dress in sheep's clothing want to be treated like shepherds, so if we're going to avoid wolves we should avoid shepherds. Or perhaps only the kind of shepherds that hide in academic vaults from where they broadcast their theories about life in the wild.

Here at Abarim Publications we are of course very impressed with linguists having unearthed the Proto-Indo-European root "(s)ner", but we would also like to point toward the Hebrew verb נער (na'ar), which means to be young — noun נער (na'ar) means young boy and נערה (na'ara) means young girl. This verb may also refer to a shaking loose, which implies that whatever is doing the shaking is now fast or caught in a snare. For more Greek words that are actually Hebrew, see our article on the many Hebrew roots of Greek.

The verb ναρκαω (narkao), to grow numb, is not used independently in the New Testament, but from it derives: