Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939
Punt Gun (circa 1923)
Of course, old Sigmund conjectured that a firearm was a phallic symbol and even took into account that the very cigar that he smoked was of the same symbol – manhood. Delving deeper; however, it soon comes down to the real emotion of pleasure; feeding our inner child. The bigger the cigar, the bigger the firearm, or the bigger the car the more pleasure we derive from these things. Show a child a small sucker and then a large lollipop and see what the child chooses. However, Freud himself realized that not everything was about sex and once commented ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’ (Freud was a frequent cigar smoker).
Sigmund was on to something, all right!
A Typical Indoor Firing Range; A place to feed our Id, Ego, and Super Ego
I had brought along some CCI .22 Long Rifle ammunition to zero with and quickly set up the rifle in a homemade rest using my range bag as the support.
I nestled in behind the rifle and prepared that first, cold bore shot. As I squeezed the trigger, the gun went boom and a small hole appeared in the target 3 inches high and two inches left. I automatically set the cross-hairs of the scope at my original aim point and adjusted the cross-hairs to the little round hole. Resetting the rifle so that the cross-hair were again at the original aiming point, the little round hole produced by next round was real close to center; a minor adjustment brought the third round exactly in the center. My parent’s instructions had taught me well.
For the rest of the session, I chased holes and attempted to make groups as small as possible on the target – my child at play with adult supervision. The child, adult, and parent were all in my head. In Freudian terms, these would be the Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego all engaging in harmony with each other.
I am a thinker by nature; always have been. Having studied Transactional analysis for a while, I have brought into perspective the Freudian qualities and the characters of TA together in my mind in order to understand who I am; what I do and why I do it. I still don’t understand me as a whole person but putting labels on all this intra-personal communications that resides in my brain has resulted in both understanding and confusion.
Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939 (otherwise known as Sigmund Freud) is considered the father of psychoanalysis. In his 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud proposed that the human psyche was the ID and the Ego, which he expounded on in 1923. Later he added the Super Ego. The three parts of the human psyche was then the Id (child), the Ego (the adult), and the Super-Ego (the parent).
The Id is the the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends, the child, the pleasure part of us. The Ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego (the adult part). The Super-ego is the critical and moralizing role that intervenes between the Ego and the ID.
In Transactional Analysis, a person plays roles according to the personality (in fact, these roles may determine the predominate personality of a person). Somehow, in my mind, I found a correlation between the psyche and personality. In TA, we each have a child, adult, and parent. In transactional Analysis, these three characteristics come into play during inter-personal communications – communication between us and other people or just communication between other people. With that said, would not the same be true in intra-personal communication –conversations that occur in our head with each of the psyche components.
Lucky Charms. Maybe not healthy but feed the kID in me!
For example, I was in the grocery one day and I spotted a box of cereal on the shelf that I had never heard of. The labeling was eye catching and obviously geared to someone much, much younger than I. My child said, “That looks like a fun cereal!” My adult said, “It does have vitamins in it, so it must be nutritional.” My parent said, “It’s junk food! You don’t need that!” My child won out and I have enjoyed Lucky Charms ever since.
I was in an auto parts store one day looking for a K&N air cleaner element for my vehicle. My adult side (Ego) had done the research and decided that the product was worthy enough to purchase. At the store, there just happened to be a complete K&N open-air filter with chrome base and top that would fit the throttle=body fuel injector of my vehicle. My child (Id) said, “That would look great on the engine?” My parent (super-ego) said, “It costs too much!” My Id and Ego both won out that day.
So, here I was at the range with my newly-scoped Ruger 10/22 that had just been zeroed. My adult (Ego) had correctly sighted the scope in because the Super-Ego (the parent) can also be a nurturing one (and not just a critical parent) and helped me learn how to correctly mount and zero a scope. Once zeroed, that is when the Id (the child) kicked in and I spent the rest of the session just enjoying chasing target holes and trying to make small groups with tiny bullets – the pleasure center was fed. Are you starting to see how Freud and firearms are related?
Could have Freud realized that not everything was about sex and would simply commented ‘Sometimes a firearm is just a firearm?’ Somehow, I don’t picture old Sigmund saying, “It is what it is!”
Then again, perhaps it answers the question as to why I like shooting short-barreled pistols and revolvers. I have to think about that!
Sources for blog:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego
- http://psychology.about.com/od/eindex/g/def_ego.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego
