Life Style

 

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This essay incorporates motivational concepts put forth by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. Adler was one of the founding members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society but left and developed his ideas of personality. My style of life can be explained, in part, by concepts of consciousness, unconsciousness, ego ideal, identification, and striving for superiority.

Freud postulated, in his theory of the mind, consciousness, preconscious and unconsciousness. Within the unconsciousness we find repression. Repression means that there are forces that oppose ideas from becoming conscious. That doesn’t mean that all ideas are repressed and cannot nor are capable of becoming conscious (latent). Freud, also postulated the superego. The superego is an internal representation of the values and ideals found in society. These values and ideals are initially interpreted to the child from his parents and are reinforced by means of rewards and punishments.

The unconscious ego ideal, a subsystem, is found in Freud’s superego. The ego ideal represents the ideal rather than reality and strives for perfection rather than pleasure. Parent’s rewards and approval thus become incorporated into the ego ideal through mechanisms of introjection and identification. For the male, it is important that his first male identification becomes intensified in a healthy fashion with his father. Strong male identification can be seen in the development and found in a masculine character. Further, according to Freud, our ego ideal is a representation of our relationship with our parents. Within psychological development, the role of father later becomes carried out by teachers, coaches and others in authority. Injunctions and prohibitions remain powerful in the ego ideal and continue to form, in the super ego, a conscience which exercises moral censorship.

 Within the superego, conscience and guilt is based on disapproval of parental values and doing things contrary to parents’ wishes. However, with the ego ideal, the individual can be rewarded based on parental affection, love, approval, and acknowledgment. With reward, the person feels proud of self. In other words, the perfection or ideal is influenced by parental rewards of approval.

 Alfred Adler, on the other hand, hypothesized that aggression was perhaps more important than sex in understanding man’s motivation. He believed that man mainly pursues fictional ideas that have no counterpart in reality. For example “all men are created equal; honesty is the best policy; the end justifies the means” essentially are fictitious but allows man to deal more effectively with his reality.

Adler also believed that man is motivated by expectations occurring in the future which are conscious strivings. Strivings define the man. He thought that pursuing power was masculine and was an over compensation for feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. He referred to this as a striving for superiority. It’s important for man to be aggressive, powerful and superior or striving for perfect completion, societal good or self-actualization. It’s pathological and destructive when pursuing selfish leadership roles in society. The neurotic was one who selfishly pursued power, possession, self-aggrandizement and other egotistic goals. Adler believed that positive social goals of cooperation, and working for the common good were motivations which defines a healthy man. Therefore, a striving for power and superiority can be a greater good when society benefits as in concert with one’s style of life as in employing power of reason, respect, justice and truth.

Revisiting childhood, clues to my ego ideal and striving for superiority are traced, in part, back to elementary school. My favorite childhood author was John R. Tunis. This author, prior to writing fiction, graduated from Harvard, was a member of the tennis team and pursued study of law at Boston University. He also reported on sports for the New York Evening Post and later covered tennis for NBC radio including the first US broadcast from Wimbledon. I read “The Kid from Tompkinsville,”  “Rookie of the Year,” “All-American,” “High Pockets,” and “Go Team Go.” In his stories, there was conflict, stress, adversity and overcoming with the protagonist being the hero. Obviously, I coveted both phantasy and recognition too.

One way to receive recognition, being a hero and approval was through participation in sports. I played high school and college football and my father attended my practices and games. He was even president of the Denby Dads Football Club. I got to be a hero and displayed physical dominance on the football field. Another way to receive recognition, approval and superiority was by attending the University, participating in 3 graduation ceremonies and obtaining a PhD. A third way, later in life, to receive recognition, approval and praise was through my 100 mile Ride and Tie completion; 100 mile Tevis completion and 100 mile Western States endurance run. Of roughly 20,000 to have entered the Tevis and Western States, 67 have buckled in both. Warren and I are two of four to have buckled in all three 100 mile events.

A couple of Saturdays ago, Linda, Teddy and I went to the Cool Ride and Tie event. An event we formerly hosted but now run by my former ride and tie partner and friend Sue and her husband Bill. We chatted with world-class runners Jim Howard and Dan Barger. Incidentally, my first ride and tie experience, was hosted by Dan and called the Mustang Classic that began on Mount Hamilton. There I met Tony, Jeff, Curt and Robert in 1997. So many memories. Unfortunately, so many are no longer with us. I miss dear friends and ride and tie partners Bob Edwards and Jonathan Jordan and other friends like Jim Steere, Thom Christofk, Mark Richtman and Warren Hellman. Additional stories can be found in “It Has Nothing To Do With Age”  or watching our TV show on YouTube. Tony handled that part of the job too. The quote by Lao Tzu “A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step” fits. What a terrific game changing journey it was.

Also related to motivation was my identification with father. Examples: 1. Dad was an undefeated union Pres. over 21 years. When home, Dad was often on the phone or had visitors over. Union business centered on getting promotions within the system and dealing with various discriminatory policies. The word discrimination was implanted in my brain. I attended one of his retirement parties.  At that event, I learned so much about what he accomplished as a union president. I had no idea since he didn’t talk about those victories. I was amazed and felt proud. It’s no surprise that I’m writing about discrimination as well 2. Dad loved California. Prior to age 5, I made my first trip to California with my parents. Dad talked about California throughout and visited often. I had family member residents of California, Aunt Sarah, Uncle Max, Aunt Sissy and Uncle Paul. In fact, I was with my father visiting Aunt Sarah and Uncle Max when my name appeared in the Detroit Free Press regarding the announcement of my football scholarship. It’s no surprise that I moved to California, accepting an assistant professorship at Cal State San Bernardino after graduation. 3. Dad said “get an education because they can’t take that away from you” and “work with your brain and not your back.”

Also, in my style of life, was the writing of “It Has Nothing to Do with Age” and “Bo’s Warriors- Bo Schembechler and the Transformation of Michigan Football.” Moreover, Thom Darden and I have a motivated movie script writer. The goal is to bring the story to the big screen.

In summary, I write about issues pertaining to motivation, health, wellbeing and discriminatory issues affecting man. This has become an important part of my life style.  Employing the ego ideal, in the unconscious, and the implacable pursuit of conscious goals also describes my behavior. As in elementary school, I read, write and involve myself in running.  I continue to enjoy praise, acknowledgment, achievement and strive for ideals. Two quotes, the first by Epicurus and the second by Socrates “He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing” and “The unexamined life is not worth living” are meaningful to me.

PS

Tony is now in my age group. However, he’s still complaining about his sore leg.