A Few Thoughts Regarding My General Dislike For Freud #1

Sigmund Freud*

If you know anything about Sigmund Freud, you probably know whether or not you hate him yet. OK, maybe ‘hate’ is a strong word, and I might have used the word ‘yet’ a little hastily, but never mind that; I’m not his biggest fan, and this is MY blog, so I’ll say what I want.

Or will I? See, that’s the thing – what I want isn’t always what comes out. It’s not what I always get. I mean, it’s not what… Ugh, I knew it. I’m going to have to refer to the man himself to explain this.

A long long time ago, when everything was in black and white and before Psychology existed yet, Freud came up with some ideas and spouted his mouth off about them an awful lot, which created something of a stir among the medics of his day. His day, by the way, was around the end of the period we commonly call CDT (Charles Dickens Times). One of his outlandish ideas was (according to the translation from Austrian to English) that as children we kind of fancy one of our parents. This was one among many of his suggestions that created a fuss, and for the record, personally I think it’s a rather silly idea, which is how I feel about quite a number of his ideas.
However, he also suggested that inside each of us lives three characters, and I rather like this idea. I’ll tell you about the three characters here. And, if you already know about them, please feel free to go and eat some grapes or whatever. Or you can scroll to the part where I make my Big Thing Point, near the bottom of your screen. It’s up to you.

Oh cool, you stayed. Nice one.
The first of the three characters is called Id.
The Id is that part of you that wants stuff, and doesn’t really care about the consequences of getting stuff. The Id says ‘I want cake’ and ‘I want to have sex’ and ‘One more whisky won’t hurt’ and ‘Damn I don’t want to go to work today’. It’s a rather restless character, and thoughtless too. It knows very little, if anything, about the future, and as a general rule it doesn’t learn from the past (unless it liked something, in which case it learns to want more of it).
It’s repetitive as well; if the Id doesn’t get the thing that it wants, it keeps on asking until we give it at least a smidge of what is on its mind, or until it gets bored of wanting that particular thing and thinks of something else to ask for instead. A good example of this is when it’s horny until it realises it’s hungry.
I think of my Id as a naughty little gremlin who sits on my left shoulder and makes excuses and demands that can, at times, be somewhat irritating.

On my right shoulder though sits another character (this one’s also irritating) and its name is Superego.
The Superego is a spoilsport. It’s annoyingly right all the time, and bases its rightness on a set of standards that we call morals and ethics and values and customs – a whole load of good things that we shouldn’t really argue with.
However, the Id kind of… He kind of does argue with them.
So when my Id decides it wants to be awake in the mornings, and then instantly starts complaining – groaning like a 15-year old, resenting the duties of the day, and asking me to immediately feed it cake and cigarettes – my Superego jumps into the conversation with all sorts of annoying arguments such as ‘Cake is not breakfast’, and ‘You can’t stay in bed all day you big oaf’, and ‘You’ll die of a heart attack you idiot’.
It says things like, ‘What will people think if all your teeth fall out?’ and, ‘Don’t drink that for fuck’s sake, it’s not even yours’.
I’m grateful for my Superego. I am. I’m not the sort of person who guzzles every unhealthy experience that comes my way, and I guess if I didn’t have a Superego then I might be that sort of person, and that’s not the sort of person I want to be. Although of course, if you asked my Id what sort of person I am and want to be, you may not get that message so clearly.

And that’s all because I have an Ego!
It’s funny, in Freudian terms the Ego isn’t what we tend to think it is these days. I think most of us associate the word ‘Ego‘ with folks like Donald Trump and various other power-crazy insane people, but the word, as Freud put it, doesn’t really mean that. In fact, to my mind, Donald Trump has a big Id, a very small Superego, and a basely absent Ego.
I think.
I mean, I think that’s what I think. We’ll see.
But anyway, the Ego is an arbiter. It’s a peacemaker; it’s a character who listens to the arguments that the Id and the Superego put forward, who weighs up the pros and the cons, and who makes a judgement.
The Id says ‘I want cake’; the Superego says ‘Have some fruit, it’s healthier’; and the Ego says ‘OK calm down you guys, it’s the weekend so let’s have cake and fruit. But on Monday we’re going back to toast’. And that way everyone is happy. Apart from the dentist.

Now. We can explain quite a lot of our problems with this knowledge. For instance, when I’m anxious, we could say that my Id loses its voice and my Superego takes the lead, putting forward a barrage of counterarguments that my Ego takes seriously in order to protect me.
I’ll give you an example. One of my biggest sources of anxiety is money, because I currently don’t have any. Of course, my Id doesn’t care about consequences, so if I have a tenner in my pocket, it says, ‘Oooo, what can we buy with that?’ and starts making a list. The list begins like this:
– Cake!
– A takeaway!
– Beer!
– Drugs!
But my Superego steps in and says, ‘Woah woah woah, let’s calm down a minute. We need this tenner, we must hold onto it. It could save our bacon later in the week when the butter runs out. And we’re running low on fruit, and washing up liquid too, so we mustn’t go round frivolously buying cake. And anyway, what if the car breaks down? How are we ever going to pay for that?! And have we got enough socks? DO WE OWN ENOUGH SOCKS? Fucking hell, if only we had a whole bunch of tenners, we might be alright, but then… If we had loads of tenners, we could buy some new shoes, which would be nice but that wouldn’t leave enough to pay for emergency socks and for when the car breaks down. OH MY GOD WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?????’
That’s what my anxiety sounds like.
As you can see, under certain circumstances my Superego can be quite persuasive, and at times like these my Ego tends to buckle under the weight of it all and ends up just forcing me to sit around, worrying about money, while my Id licks its wounds and thinks quietly about cake.

And when I’m not anxious, I’m still sort of… Anxious… For quite a lot of the time. It’s just a different type of anxious, that’s all. I mean, I don’t cope well with too much chaos, and chaos is pretty much my Id‘s favourite thing. However, I don’t cope well with too much rigidity either, and rigidity is very much my Superego‘s favourite thing.
My therapist says that Life is perhaps a river that runs between chaos and rigidity, and we’re each in a boat. As we glide along this river, he says, sometimes we need to step onto one of the shores in order to deal with something. Maybe the water is rushing us along too fast and we need to backtrack or pause for breath, or maybe we’re just in a particularly boring stretch of river and we feel the need for a distraction. But, in these moments, which side of the river do we choose to disembark onto? Do we choose all chaos or all rigidity? As a rule, we can’t have both, unless we stay in the river. And as another rule, if we stray too far onto either riverbank, we end up depressed or anxious. Or depressed and anxious. Depressed and anxious because we’re not fulfilling the wishes of a part of ourselves (the Id or the Superego) while we indulge, voluntarily or not, in the wishes of that neglected part’s opposite. Mental isn’t it?

So we can choose to step into chaos or order – into Id or into Superego – but how about this: what if a storm comes, and we’re forced out of the river? Or what if there’s a crocodile? Or a hole in the boat? Jesus, I’m getting anxious just thinking about it. And I’ve only got a tenner in my pocket. Fuck.

Anyway. To cut a long story short, currently I’m battling it out with my Id, my Superego and my Ego.
See, as far as my Id is concerned, I’m writing a book. And, to be fair, my Ego has been pretty satisfied with me when I’ve immersed all my energy into this project – I haven’t had much else to do, and it’s been lockdown, so… Yeah, with my head stuck in Book-Writing-Mode for the last few weeks, it’s been great, and there hasn’t been much confrontation in my head between my Id and my Superego, which has been lovely, for me. I feel like I’ve had a holiday.
However, I’ve started a bloody blog haven’t I? And I like it, for god’s sake. And I have an essay to write, for college. And I kind of like that too, but I don’t want it now, not while I’m trying to write a book.

Huh.
Notice how it’s changed from ‘I’m writing a book’ to ‘I’m trying to write a book’.
I just caught myself writing that, and it’s interesting. It’s interesting because lately I keep asking myself, ‘What does it mean to try?’ What is ‘trying‘?
I used to think that ‘trying‘ was a process of focussing energy and putting up resistance, and tensing my muscles. But those things all make it harder to try, so nowadays I think ‘trying‘ means something else. I think it means ‘not trying’. I mean, I’m much better at things when I’m not trying to do them, and when, instead, I’m just doing them.
So it’s interesting how, a few paragraphs ago, I changed from ‘writing a book’ to ‘trying to write a book’… And I did that subconsciously as well, which is something that Freud would have a shit ton to say about, I can assure you. I reckon he’d probably say that it’s because I fancy my Mum.

Hhhhhhhhh. Bloody Freud.

But where was I? Oh yes: my Id wants to keep writing the book.
Meanwhile, my Superego is starting to bark orders at me about the essay. Look – here it comes now: “SAM! WRITE THAT ESSAY!”
Oh bollocks, and here’s my Id again, stamping its feet: “No! I want to write my book!”
“Not until you’ve done some essay.”
“No! I said BOOK!”
“Essay!”
“Book!”
“Essa-“
“Boo-“
etc.
And get this: my poor Ego is getting such a buzz from its new blog – after all, let’s face it, we’re all a little bit Donald Trump – and in the end it’s ignored both arguments and brought me here, to write this! Welcome to my procrastination. Also welcome to my realisation that Trump does have an Ego. However, this is not the topic for discussion so I won’t press the matter.

I’ll tell you what though.
It’s time for you to stop eating grapes now because here’s the part where I tell you my whole Big Thing Point.
What it is… is… Fucking Freud is bloody right isn’t he?! Despite all his jumped-up, self-inflated, accusatory, badly translated, badly outdated, opium-addicted, weird creepy perviness, he was bastard bollocking right. He knew all along that I’d spend my week wandering around aimlessly, avoiding my essay and avoiding my book because neither my Id nor my Superego can win a fight. And I don’t like that one bit.

So I try not to think about it too much.
But in trying not to think about it, I end up hunching my shoulders, and focussing my attention, and putting up resistance. I focus my attention on actively disliking Freud. I tense my muscles to show him rejection. I put up resistance in the hope of stopping him from seeing inside my head.
But isn’t that silly? He’s dead for goodness sake! He can’t see inside anyone’s head, including mine. And actually… Only I can see inside my head.
But wait… That… Means… That means I’m Freud… I mean, it means I’m the person who I’m telling to go away…
Awww nawww.
I’ll say it again: Isn’t that silly?!

*

What I’ve realised here is this: instead of dealing with my own shit, and getting on with the essay (which, it turns out, I’m enjoying), and instead of writing some book in between bits of essay (which I’m also enjoying), I’ve come on here to rant about Freud, who doesn’t exist anymore.
Tadaa!
And for my next trick I’ll tell you about all the Defence Mechanisms that this process involves. Or I won’t. It depends what my Id feels like writing about, and what my Superego allows me to write about.
However, I’ve really enjoyed writing this; I’ve satisfied my Ego and I’ve got my big thing point off my chest, so I guess now I’ll write some essay.

“NO! I SAID BOOK!”

*photo stolen from the internet, with a cheeky wink and a nod of thanks.