Freud and the Ideal Self 229
conscious for that. He chafes inside. He aches and he does not usu-
ally quite know why. But he does the best he can— making his
deals— and he lives with it.
And though living with anxiety and depression and unfulfi lled
desires may be arduous enough, it is distinctly unheroic. No one
should receive the laurels of fame for bringing it off. It is simply what
a middle- class man or woman must do. The paradox is that leading
the Freudian life well is a true challenge, and generally we do not
succeed i n it. A s he obser ve s i n “ T he R e si s t a nce s to Ps ychoa n a ly si s”:
Society is not “suffi ciently wealthy or well- organized to be able to
compensate the individual for the amount of his instinctual renun-
ciation. It is consequently left to the individual to decide how he
can obtain, for the sacrifi ce he has made, enough compensation to
enable him to preserve his mental balance. On the whole, however,
he is obliged to live psychologically beyond his means, while the
unsatisfi ed claims of his instincts make him feel the demands of
civilization as a constant pressure upon him” (SE.XIX,219).
But even succeeding in making psychological deals does not
add up to very much, at least for some. Ultimately, all you do is live
and die and provide for the same kind of life of renunciation and
relatively meaningful work for your children. This is all, and it may
not be very much. But Freud believes that to attempt much more is a
serious error. The nobility of Freud’s implicit view of life is muted.
But, he repeatedly insists, the pain and sorrow that can come from
seeking alternatives is anything but minor, anything but muted.
For there are ways to solve the Freudian dilemma, and Freud is
aware of them. He recognizes that though we are divided beings, we
pine for unity, and that there are ways to achieve that unity—or at
least its illusion. Though we are tripartite creatures, we can make
ourselves quite readily into composite wholes and enjoy the feeling
of fullness, at least for a while. But these states of wholeness are
potentially destructive, not only to the individual involved, but to