Freud Was A Sad Love Hipster

"We deprive ourselves in order to maintain our integrity, we economize in our health, our capacity for enjoyment, our emotions; we save ourselves for something, not knowing for what. And this constant suppression of natural instincts gives us the quality of refinement...Why don't we get drunk?...Why don't we fall in love with a different person every month?...Thus we strive more toward avoiding pain than seeking pleasure. And the extreme case are people like ourselves who chain themselves together for life and death, who deprive themselves and pine for years so as to remain faithful, and who probably wouldn't survive a catastrophe that robbed them of their beloved."
-Sigmund Freud to Martha Bernays, 1883

Freud, like Nietzche, barked a lot louder than he bit. And who is not subject to that? More than that, however, they took the easy road. It is hard to live the fairy tale life of Christianity: there are many trials along the way, and people laugh when you tell them there's a princess, and a tower, and a dragon in your tale. It is also hard to live the Waiting For Godot life they proposed for themselves and others: that life is cold, and bleak, and if one faces it, requires discipline and strength and commitment. It is better, if one is Nietzche, a physical weakling with health troubles, to write about super men and the moral superiority of strength, let your mom look after you, spend years writing your sister to mock her, then have her take care of you in your time of need.
Not a stretch. Except for the pants. hipsterhitler.com.

And it is better, if you are Freud, to take the hipster approach to love. "I know that this love isn't real, and that if I thought it were I'd lose my cool card, but doesn't it make you just a bit excited to know that you make me too weak to hold to my ideals?"

This way you get it all. If you need her to dote on you, if you need her to do something for you, you say that you're lost in love with her. If you cheat on her, if you decide to leave for a while and come back to her when you like, well then, you just tell her you told her so, you were simply living by your instincts. I do what I want, but I'll claim this hold on you. My buddy Nietzche let his Lutheran mom's ethos rule when it was convenient for him, I will let cupid's ethos rise to the top when I need you.

In this way Freud, and you, and so many hipsters today, are not held accountable for any of their dishonorable behavior. Sweet. Easy road all the way.

It's cool if I fuck your sister, right?

This has been a "chivalry is dead" rant.

Comments

  1. Look for this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1571222/

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  2. Great post. Great thoughts. Things never change, eh? "My belly is my god" etc. Hiding from the truth is hard, cowardly work. Freud and Nietzsche prove this so eloquently for us!

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  3. Let me preface this by saying I take no great interest in Christianity but...

    I'm an idealistic person living in New York City, where I don't belong, and I found this post to be one of the most refreshing things I've read in a long time, on the internet or otherwise. I share most of your sentiments. I find that, in striving to live my own unconventional "fairy tale life", it is often other people and the conscious decisions they make (their cowardice, most of all) that stand in the way. However, I object to your note on chivalry, because this lack of general decency toward other human beings is so pervasive in hipster culture, it doesn't seem to be gendered -- and neither should practicing decency toward other human beings.

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    Replies
    1. I'm glad you found this post refreshing, thanks for your kind comment.

      As for the chivalry thing, I won't disagree, except to say that I write this blog for men, so I often say things that are meant just for them. Of course, I hope all can profit by them.

      Cheers!

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