I studied the theories of Sigmund Freud during my undergraduate work in college. After years of therapy I am okay now. At least that’s what the voices in my head tell me. They also tell me that I must wrestle with grizzly bears, but I’m not convinced.
Freud proposed that we all have three parts to our psychic apparatus; the id, ego and super-ego. The id acts according to the “pleasure principle” and seeks to avoid pain or displeasure aroused by increases in tension. I think Freud mislabeled something here. While we may all have the id, I think men have the Super Id… iot gene, and I am a proud member of this club.
I would now like to explain to males, females and everyone else just how the Super Id… iot gene works. I have to do this especially for men because the Super Id… iot gene prevents us from reading books like Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Men read books that look more like magazines about hunting and motorbikes. Okay, actually, this article is really more for women. It is not four hundred pages long and there aren’t romantic or emotional story lines interwoven throughout, but it will solve the mystery of men.
When women look in a mirror, they see faults; lots of faults. This is why makeup was invented. It is also why a woman spends approximately two hours in front of a mirror when they have an hour and a half to be somewhere. And then they work on it more with the help of a rearview mirror while driving seventy miles an hour on a crowded four-lane freeway.
When a man looks in the mirror, he sees perfection… even before he shaves or combs his hair. At age 45 he wonders how he can still look so young and so good. And that extra 30 pounds on his belly… sexy! When he drives, he glances at the rearview mirror just to smile at himself. This is the Super-Id… iot gene working in high gear.
Women think men do stupid things. That’s because we do. We have to! It’s in our genetic code. In the 1920s, George Mallory was planning his assent of Mount Everest. If successful, he would be the first to summit the highest mountain in the world. When asked (probably by a woman) “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” his quick reply was “Because it’s there.” This retort has been dubbed the most famous three words in mountaineering. The most famous two words in mountaineering are, “It’s cold.” There wasn’t a lot of logic packed into George’s response. It was the Super Id… iot gene speaking for him. George’s body was found 75 years later on Mount Everest. And while women might not understand this lack of logic, most males envy George Mallory.
The Super Id… iot gene forbids us from asking for directions when lost. It’s not so much that we have an internal compass, as much as it is that asking for directions would be the smart thing to do – and that is against our genetic code. It just can’t be done.
The Super Id... iot gene causes us to want to put ladders on icy driveways and climb on icy roofs to put up Christmas lights. It causes us to want to parachute out of – what women would call – perfectly good planes. It makes us want to ski off of cliffs. And when a guy is in the hospital with serious injuries after attempting to do what the Super Id… iot gene made him do, he likes to brag about it and show off his injuries… as evidence of his stupidity. We can’t help this, and lectures from women about not doing stupid things in the future only fuel the Super Id… iot gene to come up with even more impressive dumb things to do. This is why any guy who gets injured while performing death-defying feats will always go right back to doing the same feats but with greater flare.
News Reporter interviewing a man in the hospital who plunged to the earth with a malfunctioning parachute: “Do you think you will ever parachute again?”
Injured Man: “Yup, and I’ll even use the same parachute!”
Three weeks later he jumps again while still in a body cast.
A while back there was some severe flooding in Texas not far from where my brother lives. My brother and his friend decided to get their kayaks out and make good use of the deadly waters. They almost died, and when I heard of their adventures, as a male, I was jealous. I recently went caving in the Grand Tetons through a cave that involved six technical rappels and required us to traverse chasms that would mean instant death if not successfully negotiated. It was fun and I will go again.
Women of the world, it is not your fault that you do not possess this gene of which I have spoken. Take consolation in the fact that you know men who possess the Super Id… iot gene. And if you really want to see this gene working in high gear simultaneously with a whole group of middle aged men, go to a local softball game, city league basketball game, or any other sporting event where regular men have decided to compete. They will all play as though pro scouts are there to watch them. They will all believe that they play better than all of the other players… combined. They will all believe and play like the world of sports missed out by not drafting them twenty years earlier.
And as a woman, the best thing you can do for them later that day in the hospital is to let them know how amazingly they played. Under no circumstances are you to say something like, “Honey, maybe you should give up playing basketball. You keep getting hurt and you aren’t getting any younger.” DO NOT SAY THIS! That activates the switch that mixes the Super Id… iot gene with male testosterone! And that can be very dangerous!
