One, who is a psychology student or having interest in
psychology, should know Sigmund Freud.
Well, in case you don’t know, he is (or was, I am having difficulties to
decide which tenses to use) the founding father of Psychoanalysis – once one of
the popular fields in psychology.
And his fundamental theory about personality is the Id, Ego and Superego. Some people, including me, have difficulties
differentiating those three, which are responsible for our behavior. Some of you may
argue that his theory is outdated. But believe me, if you trace deep enough
through the modern psychology, you will come back to these famous three.
Okay, enough about psychology and Freud. Let’s talk about
those three directors of ours. Id is
the part of you, that wants to enjoy the life as pleasantly as possible. That includes all the
hedonic urges in you – hunger, sex, buying expensive but unimportant things. On
the other hand, there is the police of the mind – the Superego – who regulate or limit the Id so that you don’t live like animals or simply destroy yourself
with those desires. So, everytime you want to do something - or behave - these two
legendary rivals will fight, or I should say, negotiate. Imagine the
devil-and-angel thing like in films or cartoons. The result, or the treaty, of the
negotiation is the Ego, things you
finally express in your behavior – smiling and say no when a stranger gives you
something or nod your head in front of your parents although you didn’t agree
with what they say.
And of course, there come times when your Id is so strong but your Superego is surprisingly diligent in
doing its work. For example, you want to swear (name all the derogatory words,
mostly marked with derog. in a
dictionary) but your social values don’t allow it. One thing I find interesting
is how our Ego turns out to be,
accommodating the hateful feeling yet socially accepted.
Instead of saying the word that means excrement, some people
say “Shoot!”, with the same intention and tone of swearing, of course. Some replace
the word which means sexual intercourse with “Fudge!”. If you are following the
series How I Met Your Mother, you will learn many replacements – such as
surgeon for a person who hasn’t had an intercourse or witch as in wicked witch
to refer to seducing, annoying behavior of a woman or sandwich as a reference to the leaves that is illegal in most part of the world. In this way, they are safe
from trouble: when somebody got mad, they could say, “I didn’t say the bad
words.” At the same time, their loath was expressed.
Some people go smarter. Instead of showing one forbidden
finger, some show three fingers with the caption “read between the lines”. Or
pretending to rub their chin or eye, but the only active finger is that
particular finger – as for this one, some do it subconsciously – and here comes
another theme: defense mechanism. Oops!
Remember: there will always be a negotiation between Id and Superego within you. And the result is your Ego, for example, this article (and the avoidant of some words, oh,
you know what I mean).
