Amy's Baking Company - A Study of the id

According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the id is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs, and desires. The id operates based on the pleasure principle, which demands immediate gratification of needs. When we are unable to immediately satisfy a need, tension results. The id relies on the primary process to temporarily relieve the tension ... creating a mental image either through daydreaming, fantasizing, hallucinating, or some other process. Source

I am a firm believer that we all need our fantasies. They protect us and give us something to focus on when real life is too painful. But there is a natural stopping point to where this becomes destructive. I think that line may be hazy and different for everyone, but you will reach it nonetheless. Or you will plunge over that line into batshit crazy.

I am NEVER in the loop with things, but I happened to catch the edge of something viral on a blog that I frequent. If you haven't heard of the horrific Amy's Baking Company episode of Kitchen Nightmares then click here. For your own safety, I recommend only watching the first 8 minutes or so. I was emotionally stressed out while watching, but couldn't look away. Once I was finally done with the episode, I literally had to take a walk to calm down. Naturally, I ended up digging for more dirt because, you know, Americans do that.

The things I found were awful. Some people are just awful.

Now, this particular delusion had a good starting point. The restaurant was clean and attractive with a good-looking signage. But there was terror hidden in the wings. While I admire Samy's extreme devotion to his wife, some bitches be crazy. And while we have all deluded ourselves at some point - I'm still not sure life in general is not a delusion - some things are beyond the pale.

I wish that I had enough knowledge of psychology to give a good theory on why this happened (case in point, 90% of what I know about the id is from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), or give management or business tips that weren't obvious. Instead, I want to use this as a yard stick. On those days where the world really seems to be against you, when you feel like the worst version of yourself, when one of your fantasies comes crashing into your reality, just remember this: if you are not these people, you are still okay.

Humans are not all good or all evil. We are not all sane or insane. We are a muddy mess of all these things. But if you can rise above ABC Bakery levels of crazy, then your day is already better than you think.