Psycho-Logical! — Quotidian — 495
(Transcript of video originally posted on 30 Aug 2023)
Below a certain age, we say, “It’s so kyoooot…!” Even in Tamil, we use “Adhu”. “Adhoda Vaaya Paaren!” That. And not “He” or “She”. Even though we know the gender! That..! Incidentally, even in German, the word is “das kind”.. It is not “die Frau” or “der Mann”. Basically, we seem to treat it as a “thing”. It is not even given that sense of the “Ego”. It is about this that we are going to talk some interesting stuff about! Stay tuned!
Namaste! Psychological.. Psycho.. Logical.. That’s four hundred and ninety five!
This person is Sigmund Freud. A German. Scientist. Researcher. Author. And considered by many as the father of an important field of study called psychoanalysis. Many theories that he propounded.. today, people disagree with many. Call it too simplistic.. That some nuances were missed.. etc. But, all the same, he was the person who even gave BIRTH to that domain! One should respect that, shouldn’t they!?
Do you remember this movie? Aalavandhaan! That famous song that appears in that movie! “Kadavul Paadhi, Mirugam Paadhi, Kalandhu Seydha Kalavai Naan.. Veliye Mirugam, Ulley Kadavul, Vilanga Mudiyaa Kavidhai Naan.. Mirugam Kondru, Mirugam Kondru, Kadavul Valarkkap Paarkkindren.. Aanaal.. Kadavul Kondru Unavaai Thindru Mirugam Mattum Valargiradhey…! Nandhakumaaraa.. Nandhakumaaraa.. That was the song.
I am a fusion of half God, half Demon;
I am an animal outside and a God inside;
I am like a poem that cannot be understood.
I am trying to kill the Demon, and
nurture the God in me.
But, the Demon is killing and devouring the God,
to get nurtured and grow!
The animal inside us.. controlled, guided, kept in check, hopefully all the time, by the angel that’s protecting us. Half Godly. Half Beastly.
What did Freud say? Specifically? He said, inside every single one of us, there are three aspects. There is a DEVIL. There is an ANGEL. Torn between them, deciding among them, is that REALIST. He gave them names too. He said, it’s the ID, the SUPEREGO, and between them both, the EGO. Shall we look at it in a little more detail? Consider a little puppy dog. That genderless animal that we talked about. The fight-or-flight response we have referred in earlier Quotidians. That lizard brain. For that animal, it is only the ID. Immediate gratification. Right now! What next?! A young boy has this dog for a pet. And, he is giving that dog a torrid time! Troubling the dog. Pinching it. Pulling its ears. Poking at its eyes.. Whatever. Because, he doesn’t know. The child doesn’t know any better. And, so, he treats the child thus. The Mother. Is alongside all the while. “Dear, you shouldn’t be doing that dear! Kannaa, what would others say?!” — That’s the Mother. In this simplistic story, the ID is the child. Doing whatever he pleases. I will do whatever I damn well want to do. And, .. the SUPEREGO is the Mother. “People in the neighbourhood are watching! This is wrong! That is an animal too. A living thing! With feelings and emotions! Can feel pain! Won’t it be painful?” A tradition, a history, a heritage, a culture.. Something that they have inherited because they grew up in this society. That SUPEREGO. This child? He hasn’t yet learned the lessons. But.. a while later, the dog catches the boy unawares, and gives him an irritated nip. Instant reaction after all. The ID of the dog! The moment the dog responds instinctively, the boy realises.. “All that my Mom has been telling me has been for my own good! I better listen to her! My ID is not probably always right! I have to learn from my SUPEREGO!” — this is the sort of middle ground that the EGO tries to navigate you towards. The EGO. That in-between. That realism.
If we were to look at that ID in a bit more detail, well, here goes. It is Biological. It has been with you from the day you were born. It has ALWAYS been with you. You are born with it. Which is why, the baby seeks the milk from the breast, SOON AFTER. Shrinks away from fire, instinctively. That is Biological. And, the philosophy that guides this child? “Right Now! I want!” They even call it the Pleasure Principle. “I will go in search of it.. I need it right now, right away! I don’t care about anything else”. Selfish, almost. One might even call it a survival strategy! But, selfish! And, it is irrational. If one were to settle down and question whether what the person is doing is logically right or not, one would wind up on a dead end. “Logic? What logic are you talking about?” It is irrational. And, it is driven by DESIRES. Not my NEEDS. But my WANTS. My dreams. My desires. THAT is the ID. And it is inside every one of us. I am sure you agree.
Let us look at the SUPEREGO. First up, you need to understand that it is Social. And, that comes probably late in life. Eight years, ten years, of age.. That is when the child even understands that there is this thing called Society, Family, School, College, Friends, Family.. Only then. And, only from those stems the content for SUPEREGO. The question that it asks you.. Your SUPEREGO asks you a question — It is “What If?” What if others come to know of this? What if it is painful for it too? What if what you are trying to do to that person, that person does to you! Remember that “Do unto others what you would want done unto you”? THAT is the encapsulation of the SUPEREGO. What If? And, the principle, unlike the Pleasure Principle, here, it is the Morality Principle. Right, Wrong, Good, Bad, Correct.. That moral rectitude we often refer to, that is what drives the SUPEREGO.. Or, that is what the SUPEREGO drives you towards. And, it is conscience-driven.. That inner voice. The true north. That echo from the inside.. Remember the phrase, “Deep down, do you really think what you are doing is right?” That DEEP DOWN, is asking the SUPEREGO. And, it is all about Controls. Just as the ID is all about Desires, the SUPEREGO is all about Controls.
The Realist is the person caught in between, torn apart by these conflicting themes. The EGO is Psychological. One is Biological, the other is Social. Here, it is Psychological. That Me-ness.. We get it around five to seven years of age. Before Social sets in, but long after the Biological has already set, the Psychological takes root. And, this is the aspect that compromises.. Can you wait a little longer? Can you make do with a fewer? Can you take it tomorrow instead of today? Can you accept this instead of that? That delay and compromise. That happens because the EGO takes action. About the principle? We saw the Pleasure Principle, and the Morality Principle… This one is all about the Reality Principle. Is it even possible? Is it plausible? Is this how people do? Is this even possible? This is the Reality Principle. And, this is where logical, rational, .. judging, estimating, System Two thinking that we have encountered in earlier Quotidians, Daniel Kahneman’s.. System Two thinking kicks into action, and here is when you even do Reasoning. Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, .. Can I compare? This one talks Morality. This one talks Pleasure. What is the practical real thing.. The one that thinks about it, is the EGO.
Alright. But, how do we take this to the world of product development? To the world of consumer interaction? To the world of marketing? Well, to market to the ID is easy, and wrong too.. I am sure you would have seen.. Cigarrettes.. they marke to the ID. Feel. The horseride. The pleasure. You have seen drinks. You have seen perfumes. You have seen makeup kits. All these appeal to the desire for sexual and power-driven motivations.. Sigmund Freud explicitly uses these terms — power-driven and sexually driven. Even apparel. Food. Restaurants. Movies.. All these, you are marketing to the ID. It is very easy to do that. The animal is waiting. In fact, it can’t even wait! And.. beyond categories too.. all you need is a tag : SALE! Right now! Stocks limited! The ID is caught! But, it is not the right thing to do!
How do you market to the SUPEREGO? The SUPEREGO is a different kind of beast, and to market to the SUPEREGO, you have to appeal to convention. The iPhone and the Android phone are as different as day and night. But, look at the keyboards..? QWERTY! Convention! Similarly, the towels in hotels.. They will always be white! Whichever hotel you pick! Be it the hotel next to Muniyaandi Vilaas.., or the Sheraton.. It is the white towel. Cars.. You may be driving a Jaguar.. or a lowly Maruti 800.. Red for stop. Yellow blinks for turn signals. Because they are conventions, and you have to respect that! Okay, what about spending for higher education abroad?! How much money is spent!! Forget about higher education abroad! Think about higher education in India! Twentyfive lakhs per year! For Medicine! But, they spend it wholeheartedly, HAPPILY! Those parents! Why? Because it is appealing to their SUPEREGO! “Forget about this short-term expenditure!”, it tells them. “Look at the income in the years to come! The growth potential! The benefits society can reap from you because of your special skills!” That is what they are appealing to! A Mother, and a Child. Both go to the shoe mall. The Child looks for a colorful design. The one that squeaks aloud for every step the child takes! But the Mother? How many years will this last? Will the color fade away too soon? Will the Child’s feet grow much faster and render this useless? And,.. that noisy shoe! No parent buys them the second time! Because, the first time, everybody around them complains! “What monstrosity have you got your Child! Raucously disturbing!” It may be useful for the Mom, to keep a track on where the Child is, but it is a nuisance! Similarly, the perfume that we talked about earlier? The one that appeals directly and shamelessly to the ID..? We won’t buy it.. But, gifting? We gift perfumes! We gift movie tickets! We gift makeup! We gift chocolates! Even though they are fattening for us! Why? We are being told by our SUPEREGO to appeal to THEIR ID! Complex!!
Let us look at some examples! Take a look at this! The ID says, “Place an ad like this! Get 20% off! Weekend only sale!” But, there are companies that say this! No credit, fixed rate, no bargaining! In fact, I know a company.. starting with the letter Z! The CEO says, “No discounts! Because, think about it.. We are already very low rates! Great value for money! And, if I give you discount, it actually means, I could have given you without you asking for it! I was having a profit margin on it! A hefty margin. And, I reduce it, just to please you! To please your ID! Do you want to work with a company like that?!” He asks! Get my point?!
How about, how they sold gym membership! That lady was feeling those biceps! “Attract women!” ID! But how do they sell gym memberships today? They are appealing to the SUPEREGO! “Good for your heart! You will live longer! Stay smart, stay fit, stay better, longer!” They are appealing to the SUPEREGO!
And? Here is another example! The iPhone. ID? Flaunt it! But, the same phone, in RED, it says, “Money that you pay, all the profit that we make, we send it for AIDS research.. Billions have already been given. For covid, for AIDS. We donate that money!” says Apple. ID.. SUPEREGO!
How about this last example? The first one, is about a productivity tool. A cloud-based SaaS tool. It says, “Become ten times as productive. Multitask. Do your work faster!” Appealing to your ID. But the second one..? “Work better by collaborating with others..” When you bring the word “collaborate”, you are automatically saying, “Don’t have that ego about who did it! You did it for the company! And the company got better! Because, as a team you collaborated better!” You get the point! The same product, positioned as a steroid, single-booster, versus, the same product, positioned, as a collaboration-enhancer. The ID. The SUPEREGO.
As a Closing Thought, I wanted to share this picture I saw recently. A pretty beautiful Venn Diagram. The world is filled with so many people.. who think they know Me.. But, the ones who actually know the real Me, only these few people! Only very few people! Many people THINK they know Me.. it says. I wanted to add a little twist to the whole picture. This is what I think the real truth is. People who THINK they know Me. People who actually know the real Me. And, finally.. ME! Analyse this a bit and you will understand the sad joke I am trying to crack. And, till then, I will take leave. Thank you!
