Good question. I think the first urge I learned to sublimate was the urge to walk around my house topless. At age eleven it was nothing sexual-- I ate cereal topless, read Tintin comics, played with the cat etc. But it became apparent as time wore on that a shirt was going to be necessary to do all these things. I repressed my urges to go shirtless-- Freud smiles down upon me-- in the name of cultural values like modesty, and so convinced my parents that they did a good job. (Never mind cultural values like liberty, self-expression, and the feeling of a cat sitting on your bellybutton.)

What were the next steps of my socialization? Hard to pinpoint. I could inventory all the restraints I've adopted since then-- the millstones 'round my neck, to be melodramatic-- but they are probably about the same for everyone.

There are some urges I haven't succeeded in repressing. For one, the urge to space out when someone talks about Derrida; or the urge to hollow out the middle of a loaf of bread and leave the crust for someone else. These things, as with the office worker who steals cheap pens from the supply closet, give me the sense that I haven't conceded entirely. That I retain a percentage of myself (about 10%) that is really me, sans compromise.

Of course, it's an imaginary autonomy. There'd be no Spicoli without Mr. Hand.

Just out of curiosity, why all this talk about sublimating urges? Is there something you need to get off your chest? (No pun intended). The topic has inspired me, actually, to spend the rest of the afternoon shirtless-- just to remind myself what it feels like.

Wish I still had a cat.

In the teeth of bourgeois ideology,

Cassidy








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