Exercising the Id
Id (das Es, lit. “the it”)
Freud borrowed the term “Id” from Georg Groddeck’s (1923) The Book of the It. Groddeck defines it thus:I hold the view that man is animated by the Unknown, that there is within him an “Es,” an “It,” some wondrous force which directs both what he himself does, and what happens to him. The affirmation “I live” is only conditionally correct, it expresses only a small and superficial part of the fundamental principle, “Man is lived by the It.”
(Groddeck, 1923/1961, p. 11)(content taken from A Freud Glossary: link)
My mantra for tomorrow is “Man is lived by the It!” And what is the “it” if not the impulse to create? I have come to realize that my love of knitting and spinning and all pursuits fiber related come from a place inside of me that is filled with longing, in a very over powering and primitive way, to create something with my own hands. Why else would the concept of taking raw materials gathered from a field and transforming them into something practical and beautiful fill me with such profound joy? It’s the pleasure principle. Knitting strokes the Id, no doubt about it.
When I first posed the idea to Mr. Knittiot of him accompanying me to Maryland, he happily agreed, offering to play the role of my Id for the day. That is, he decided it was going to be his mission to encourage me to act on impulse, make decisions and most importantly walk away from the festival with a bundle of wooly goodness (we in the knitting community refer to such wonderful and selfless people as “enablers”). This bodes well for the day as does the weather forecast which now says it will be 74 and partly cloudy.
Yesterday I gave my Id a test run (all by myself even!) and managed to not only survive shopping for clothes (I hate clothes shopping, it is a necessary evil, which is why it has been a year and a half since I bought anything new and only the increasingly large hole in my favorite pair of pants convinced me it was time for a new pair) but also walked home with a couple of items that look flattering and feel great (i.e. comfortable — I don’t believe in being uncomfortable just to be fashionable — guess who doesn’t wear high heels. ever.)
And while I would rather have liked to whoop it up with my fiber buddies at the bi-weekly (does that mean every two week or twice a week?) philly fiber gathering yesterday evening, instead I was sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair in the swelteringly hot gym of a very well-to-do catholic high school (what, all that money couldn’t buy a theater?) watching a very miserable version of Les Miserables. Uggg. I know that confessing to a general dislike of Les Miserables is bound to get me hung in some circles, but I have tried to like it and just don’t. And while I have seen some wonderful high school performances in my day (a particularly stunning version of Bye Bye Birdie comes to mind), this was not one of them. Nevertheless, we went with some coworkers of Mr. Knittiot (one of the kids in the show works with them) and afterwords we went out and indulged in a little aftershow Guinness (I actually splurged and had two). I was out until well after 2:00 and it was the first time in more than 4 years that I heard last call. I felt very young. Today I feel very old.
Anyway, tonight is preparation (make the lunch — tofu egg salad, peanut butter and celery with raisins, fresh strawberries, mmmm) and tomorrow we leave at the crack of dawn for the 2.5 hour drive to the festival grounds. I won’t be wearing Ruby Joy, but I will have my charming husband with me and you can’t miss him — if you see a tall, lanky man in black with a long curly moustache (ala Snidely Whiplash) and a pork pie hat, I’ll be the shy, linen-clad gal in the glasses standing next to him looking like I am going to pass out from the sheer magnitude of it all…
May 5th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Everyone else is talking about how to control their spending and you need to bring your partner to enable it.
Hope you have a great time.
And I agree with your clothes buying principles. Only drag queens need to wear high heels.
May 5th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Thanks for the reminder - hat, lunch. (O dear, what am I going to bring for lunch?) And solid shopping bag for those small items. I wish I had a weightless folding chair, but there’s always the cafeteria to sit down. Have a wonderful time!
May 6th, 2006 at 12:07 am
I feel your pain about Les Mis–we saw it on Broadway and I couldn’t stand it!! Just the mention of that name and my husband breaks out in hives!
May 7th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Was great to meet you and your “enabler” yesterday at MDSW while we were looking for Wendy. I did find her amongst the “bloggers on the hill”. Enjoy the rest of your summer and your travels.
May 7th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
Excellent description. He was, and so were you. It was wonderful meeting you, Mr. K, and all the wondrous fiber that will provide pillows and blankets for the Id for months to come.
Pictures. We want pictures. Ones you can pet through the screen. *ahem*
May 9th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Shy. Uh-huh. Totally self effacing.