The Wizard of Id

The other day, my colleagues and I got into a discussion about the ego of blogging. Their implication was that to blog was to be egotistical.

After nearly one year of writing, I’ve churned out nearly 200 posts. Even so, I realize that I will probably never reach a mainstream audience. I guess that stories about Minnesota, winter, and most frequently, variations on the theme of moose, about which I typically blog, don’t contain the cachet required to attract a wider audience.

I’ve previously thought that my main reason for blogging was to fulfill a need for self-expression, to create a play, something theatrical. But the LHCB story has no central thread. Except for the reoccurring “moose” theme, it consists solely of a disjunctive set of stories.

But it is not driven by the Ego:

Ego: The ego is an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others a feeling of self-respect and personal worth

I believe it is channeled through the Id:

Id. The id’s working processes are completely unconscious in the adult, but it supplies the energy for conscious mental life, and it plays an especially important role in modes of expression that have a non-rational element, such as the making of art. The primary method for unmasking its content is free association.

So I’ve determined that this particular blog is not driven by Ego, but by the Id; driven by a need for expression. It is cathartic.

But what I really think is the pseudo-Freudian rationale outlined above is a load of bullocks. Blogging is mainly a great way to poke fun at my neurotic friends in an anonymous and public forum! Happy New Year to Howard Hughes, George Clooney, Bob, M. Slither, Super Dave and the rest of the “faithful readers”.