I is for...

I is for...id, idiot, idol, idolatry

image via

http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/learning_modules/psychology/02.TU.04/?section=11

I is for id

the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression.

As put forth by Sigmund Freud.

Personally, I don't care much for Freud. A typical male of the times, he considered women little more than grown children. I'd even go so far as to say he was a misogynist. One day a woman comes to him for help, probably someone who chaffed against the inequality, the inability to have an independent life, all the closed doors that women faced and said in a moment of total frustration, 'I wish I was a man'.

Thus was born, or so I imagine, the concept of 'penis envy', something that to me, as a woman, is a ridiculous idea. Really, Freud? That's the best you can do? Don't address the total dependence on some male for her entire life that was life for most women of the time.

Did she want to be a man, physically or did she just want the privileges and rights and opportunities accorded to even the stupidest and meanest man? I'm betting on the latter.

Anyway, it totally discredited him in my mind. I'm much more a Jung kinda person.

But, still, I kinda like the idea of the 'id'. That core of every human being, perhaps every living thing, that drives the pursuit of the essentials.

And what are these instinctive impulses that reside in our deepest selves, our prime directives as it were?

1. the sustainment of life or self preservation.
2. the promotion of life or curiosity, desire and happiness (if it feels good, do it).
3. the continuance of life or, as we like to call it, sex.

Which is precisely why 'abstinence' will never work. Never ever.

Having sex is one of our prime directives. And we are horniest when we are most fertile.

Life does find a way.

Anyway, back to the id, when the 'id' sneaks out, slips past the ego and the superego, or burbles up from the 'collective unconscious', it's usually in a double entendre or a mis-placed word. A little reminder that just because we have already fulfilled our genetic duty, having passed on our genes to the next generation, it doesn't mean that that prime directive has gone away. It's still there, reminding us every now and then.

My recent status on FB:

'working on my friend's big flat lap all day. grind, grind, grind'