Guest post by Sigmund Freud
Mig is taking a short break and he asked me to guest-author here and here I so totally am. Mig’s decided to start looking for a psychotherapist although — and I totally agree with him here — he dislikes the expression “therapy” as it sounds too nurturing. Of course, knowing him, a decision to start looking for something is not the same as looking for it; it’s more likely the beginning of a long period of acclimating himself to the idea or, in other words, procrastination. But anyway.
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The nurturing idea of psychotherapy or any other kind of therapy totally misses that nature and nurture are — at least from adulthood — not only no longer the driving forces behind who we are, they are like drogue chutes on the dragster of our self-determination. Self-determination, ladies and gentlemen, is the shit. There are many among us who *do* need therapy, and do need to be nurtured, and I don’t wish to short change them. But the whole idea of blaming everyone’s problems on having a, for instance, smothering overprotective mother who stressed them out and paralyzed them when they were kids is to say the least incomplete. You reach a certain point, which scientists call adulthood, where you are ultimately responsible for yourself, above-mentioned exceptions excepted.
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I don’t wish to appear insensitive. I am a very sensitive man. But those patients of mine? Most of them were hysterical bored wives of rich industrialists who never got laid well except when posing for a portrait by Gustav Klimt and were looking for something to occupy their time and a little sympathy, and their husbands just were paying me to make them function. I couldn’t just tell them to go get a good fuck, although it would certainly have helped a good number of them. So that would be my first word of advice, is in fact, in the new system I am developing. Everybody get fucked. If that doesn’t work call me in the morning and I’ll kick your ass.
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Mig, for example, needs his ass kicked. He doesn’t need therapy or someone to tell him about his childhood. He doesn’t need to feel good because he already feels fine. He gets all the sympathy he deserves. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have all that explained so he could understand it, but if he wants to grow up all he needs is a good asskicking. That’s my working name for my new system, “kicking ass” but eventually I’ll think of something smarter-sounding for marketing purposes. “Laziness is your fundamental problem, Mig,” I would tell him. “That’s what’s got you hogtied. You call it serenity and equanimous acceptance of your situation, but it’s pure laziness. How can you become a published writer if you don’t write anything? Duh. You’re only a writer when you write. So that’s the second point of my program: kick the patient’s ass.
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You also must realize that not taking any shit is key in developing self respect and spine. So that’s a third point: don’t take any more shit after I kick your ass. When you stop letting me kick your ass, I know you’re making progress. Not taking shit has consequences, of course. But would you rather be employed or have self-respect? Would you rather be married or have a backbone? Maybe by not taking shit you really piss someone off and they kill you. But at your funeral, your friends will say, in reverent tones: “He may be dead, but he sure didn’t take any shit.”
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My new book is so going to rule. Book, TV show, lecture tours. Chicks. Goddamn.