Obvious Psychology Corner

So Freud has been largely deconstructed in the world of clinical psychology. I'm down with that. But let's not throw out the coke-snorting misogynist baby with the bathwater here.
After all, some of my favorite artists are/were drug-addled womanizers.
(What am I saying, "some...?")
I wouldn't want to date them, but I love listening to some David Bowie and Mark E. Smith.
(And to a lesser extent, Courtney Love.)

But I digress before I even get to the subject at hand.
(And anyways, Freud wasn't a rockstar. He was supposed to be helping people.)

Which is:
Some basic tenets of classic psychology are helpful to know.
Like soothing. Soothing oneself and others is an important and a great joy in life. If you haven't taken the time to sooth yourself or someone else today, you totally should do it. It's something all healthy infants need to get in order to develop normally, but we need it as adults too.

Here's just one example of something that's soothing to me:

My bed. It's totally like a womb.
It's warm and soft. My sheets are red. My blanket is pink. Sometimes I'm wearing my birthday suit in there.
I don't want to get out of it, ever really.
When I get out of my bed is when all the trouble starts, kinda like being born.
It's cold outside of my bed. There's no comforter for me on the subway or in the classroom.
The best is when I have a twin in the womb with me. (As long as they don't hog the covers.)

Yay soothing.

Another important lesson that pop psychology has taught me is this:
People, especially ones under 30, aren't really that mysterious.
We pretty much all need love and care and approval and attention from other human beings. There's nothing wrong with that. It's compatible with feminism, existentialism, and post-modernism. But some defective members of the herd would have you believe that they have no emotions and no needs. It's like they're wearing armor or something.
If you're dating someone who kinda sounds like the above description, here's what I have to say to you:
The ones who seem fucked up probably are.
The ones who seem really non-emotional are probably worse.
If they wear sunglasses all the time, be skeptical.
If they try to take care of you all the time and won't let you ever take care of them, they might have some sort of mommy complex.

I'll take painfully honest over painfully shy any day of the week, thank you.

Well, there you have it. Almost two years of graduate school boiled down to one probably offensive and definitely unscientific blog. I hope I've made my mother proud. ('Cause we're all pretty motivated by that too...)