I want I want

Here's the next page from my book of 300 Drawing Prompts (the last appeared on July 11); this current page actually came with two prompts: one in the top left corner, & one in the bottom right corner (& the canvas came pre-split with a diagonal line); those prompts were "Flamingo" and "Fleur-de-lis".

Dear diary,

I love when people talk about Sigmund Freud. It would be a dream come true for me to wake up in the faraway future and discover that everyone’s talking about ME as much as they nowadays talk about HIM.

But, would it bother me if everyone got all my ideas wrong, like everyone gets all of Freud’s ideas wrong? I don’t think so. As long as a reader can return to the source texts and read Freud’s or my own words for herself, I call it a fair war.

So let me say one thing about Freud without caring how accurate it is. Let’s say that, somewhere amidst his mountains of published work, Freud admits that (and this is a fake quote) “After all the breakthroughs that I, Sigmund Freud, have accomplished to lay bare the mind of man, the entirety of what I’ve said applies literally to man alone; for I cannot solve the enigma that is woman.” And let’s say that this is one of those interactive quotes, which you can touch with your finger and it quivers. Now let’s ask it a question. “Dear quotation, please elaborate.”

Now let’s say that the quote refuses our request and instead just says something new and slightly different, so that we can continue writing this entry without too much hassle. Let’s say it sez: “I don’t understand what women want.” So this makes me think: Well, you’re implying, by the process of elimination, that you DO at least understand what NON-WOMEN want.

First: does that ring true? Does Freud accurately represent what all men want? My first guess is: No. Nevertheless, I like what he said about us. He said that our adult life is ruined by our infancy; & that sounds right to me.

Furthermore he noted that every child experiences its first pleasure via the mouth, by feeding at the breast (or, if raised by wolves, then instead of a human breast we might substitute some curvaceous plastic bottle of synthetic milk-mix with a firm rubber nipple).

And Freud also invented the idea of bringing teeth into the soft oral cavity — that really spiced things up; and I fake-quote again: “When the fangs grow, the mouth can bite as well as suck.”

OK so I’ll speak for all of mankind: Freud did a decent job summing us up — he’s 95% trustworthy. Go ahead and award him the medal.

So that’s how Freud won the Truth Medal for his service to mankind.

*

But this idea that anyone could know what any sex or gender wants — isn’t it preposterous? And isn’t that why it’s so fun to think about?

I myself don’t understand what women want OR what men want. I don’t even understand what I want — that’s why so many of these journal entries start out with me saying “I can’t remember why the heck I fell to earth.”

But it’s easy to indulge in clichés or prejudices, like: Women just want a strong man to protect her from serpents. But that’s only if you live in a text that is serpent-rich. Plus, if you read your story correctly, you’ll see that the snake was only trying to help you: Everything it said was right and came true, whereas everything its opponent said was a lie and proven wrong — just ask the referee, the tale’s narrator (see Genesis chapters 2 & 3).

Contemplating stereotypes is enjoyable. That’s what my gut tells me we all really want. So let’s indulge ourselves, this evening:

Men want motorized vehicles, preferably pickup trucks. Men want power tools like jackhammers and battering rams. Men want guns. Men want beer. And men want women.

And what are the stereotypes about women? Do women want men? Not really. Women want…

*

See how it’s impossible to continue? That’s cuz Freud left us no prophecy concerning womankind.

But seriously I think that all women just wanna be left alone. And we want companionship. And we want harmony & poetic bedazzlement. In short, we want the same things as YOU, whoever you are. It’s not that complicated.

Nobody likes pain. Nobody wants to be treated inhumanely. Even if you live inside the jungle.

But think about what men did to the concept of the buggy. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, he (note the pronoun) equipped all buggies with harnesses that specifically fit ONLY horses. Sure, we had to manufacture our own horses, using whatever spare parts that we could dig from the dirt, but once the horse was officially handcrafted, we forced its kind to increase and multiply. The way that we instigated this miracle was as follows: We dangled pleasure before the sweat of their brow, thus luring them to samba with each other.

But, since man does not comprehend his own wants, he soon grew bored with this God-ordained contraption, the horse and buggy, and lusted after horseless carriages. His evil nature caused man to begin spawning Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Porsches, BMWs (Bavarian Motor-Works), and even DeLoreans. So this was considered a sin.

And when the motorcars mated with each other, in imitation of their forerunners, the horses, the result was catastrophic: for it turned out that this initial sin was transferable; thus their offspring came out worse — their frames were less fashionable and their engines were crap — that’s why today, most people’s auto history appears DEVO (severely entropic; de-evolved): instead of a Maserati, your first car is a beige Oldsmobile Toronado. What shoulda been a Lamborghini became a Geo Prizm. Your Porsche turned out a Fiero; your BMW a burgundy Chevrolet Corsica; and your DeLorean was a no-show, a stillbirth — perhaps it got lost in the mail; maybe it’s somewhere up ahead, on the road of the future, waiting for you; because now you drive a bicycle. Just a regular hybrid mountain bike with two pedals.

I think the original cavemen are getting their revenge on us. For during the earliest years of human barbarism, the strongest cavemen ruled over everyone. If you were physically large, with yuge muscles, you could clobber others with your fist, and take all their stuff. Thus the bulkiest cavemen possessed all the food, shelter, clothing, and medical supplies. But, one day, the wimpier cave-persons wised up & realized that, if they ganged together, they could topple the Brute Class. So they did so: they swarmed on them like angry bumblebees. Thus was gangsterism born, also known as civilized government.

(Now let me try to end this by referencing the four revolutionary values: equality, fraternity, democracy, & liberty. Please consider the following paragraph to be connected to the one directly above.)

And, till this very moment, the Brute Class remains pissed about their downfall. They HATE being humiliated into equality and fraternity. They HATE that things seem to be progressing in the direction of democracy. They don’t mind liberty, but they HATE all those other three annoyances. So all the atrocious events that are occurring in this present generation are just the result of the earliest strongmen wreaking their vengeance. We intellectuals are receiving our comeuppance. That’s my point.

Suggested title: “What Do Men and Women Want?”