Pooh For Brains

In honor of the new Winnie the Pooh book that is out this month, I would like to conduct my own moving tribute to one of our favorite childhood icons. Well…tribute may not be the best word; it’s more like a new interpretation that shatters any saccharine notions of nostalgia that may still be lingering in your skull jelly. I have a theory that the whole Winnie the Pooh thing is actually a study in psychology. Christopher Robin (CR) is the central figure of the whole affair, and I believe that each of the Hundred Acre Wood inhabitants is actually a metaphor for some part of Christopher’s damaged psyche. I present the evidence:

Winnie the Pooh - The biggest character and perhaps the most dominant of Robin’s neuroses. He is fat, lazy, stupid, and focused only obtaining honey. Pooh is the reptile brain, the most basic and instinctual part of our brain and is concerned only with instinctual drives and self-preservation. Pooh is the most benign personality and as a result is the go-to personality for the young boy whose fractured mind is a maelstrom of severe psychological maladies.

Tigger – Tigger is in part of an extension of the Pooh personality. Tigger is just as basic as Pooh, but where the bear is slow and passive, the bouncing tig[g]er is active and behaves in a manner that defies any sort of outside constraint. Today, he might be diagnosed as the personification of ADHD, but I choose to interpret Tigger as the child’s id; raw and impatient passion that does what he wants when he wants. He is also an extension of the child’s still forming libido. If CR were a few years older, Tigger would probably be bouncing around raping the shit out of anything that was slower than him.

Piglet – CR’s low self-worth is embodied by the diminutive, stuttering pig in a sweater. Piglet is unsure of himself and lives in his grandfather’s house, clearly an indication that CR feels pressure from his family who impose unrealistic standards on the child. The Piglet personality is unable to make any decisions and values himself too little to ever try and make something of himself, leading to a cyclical self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

Eeyore – Just as Tigger is the mirror of Pooh, so too is Eeyore to Piglet. Whereas Piglet is in a constant state of anxiety over his inability, Eeyore instead has descended into a depression deep enough to reach the point of apathy. A diet of thistles and a tail that needs to be nailed back on indicates a tendency toward masochistic behavior, perhaps as a form of self-inflicted punishment as a result of poor self-esteem.

Kanga – This is the CR’s largely dormant anima, or female side. Here it is presented as a maternal figure as the mother is perhaps the only female influence in his life. The fact that she is a kangaroo is interesting in that her pouch allows for the juvenile Roo personality to retreat there whenever the harshness of life becomes too unbearable. This unhealthy attachment to his mother will either be outgrown once the child matures, or it will become a separate but dominant personality in the vein of Norman Bates.

Roo – Roo is perhaps the simplest of CR’s emotional avatars. He is largely the manifestation of CR’s immature personality and desires. His friendship with Tigger is tied to a child’s innate tendency toward chaos and lack of control, yet he is helpless without the Kanga figure. As CR matures, the Roo personality should gradually become less and less prominent, indicated by Roo’s second-string status among the characters in the story.

Rabbit – This character is a more mature expression of the neuroses expressed by the Piglet personality. Rabbit is an agitated perfectionist and is easily distraught by change or dominant personalities such as Tigger. The strong desire towards the status quo and disdain of extreme passion with overtones of OCD seems to show that CR is the victim of abuse, most likely by an alcoholic father.

Owl – The wisdom and malapropism of Owl are the representations of CR’s shaky intellectual abilities. Although much respected by the other personalities, this is only because of their own ignorance and failure to recognize that much of the information presented is false. This is CR’s main source of empowerment, but its overall lack of solid grounding will result in confidence without any skills to reinforce it. The colloquial term for this type of behavior is “douchebag.”

Heffalumps and Woozles – I group these two together because they are different expressions of the same psychological themes. Unseen and mostly regarded as dangerous beasts, these two abstract creatures are perhaps the most frightening aspect of CR’s personality. This is a warped perspective on the abuse hinted at by the Rabbit personality. The difference being that the horrors of the abuse itself have been almost completely suppressed in the mind’s effort at self-preservation. Importantly, the phallic nature of the Woozle in particular may hint at sexual abuse. If the Heffalumps and Woozles were to gain control, CR would undoubtedly descend into extreme psychosis and potentially dangerous behavior, both to the child and to others.


There is my case. Lock up that kid and give me my Nobel Prize please!

Personal Note: Yes, I'm posting once a month now. You don't like it, deal with it for now. I'm a busy man.

Bedtime Story

My eyes awakened to the dark shadows of my bedroom; it’s too early to get up for school. No, the alarm that woke me is of a more internal nature. My bladder was full and needed draining, and yet despite its urgency, I refrain from getting out of bed for one simple reason: there is a monster living under my bed. Laugh if you must, but I know with absolute certainty that he’s there. Have I seen him? Well…no. But I don’t have to see the wind to know when it is trying to wrestle my kite away from me. The same holds true of the monster. I can feel him under there, and there have been times when I’ll see a shadow move out of the corner of my eye that I know is him.

Even though he’ll try to get me if I get up, eventually my need to urinate proves to be too strong. I’d rather brave a kid-hungry monster than have to tell my mother that I wet the bed. I throw off the covers with a single sweep of my arm and hot the ground running. I’m in the bathroom as soon as my feet hit the cold wood floor; a journey of fifty feet is traveled in a literal blink of an eye. I should probably be studied by scientists in an effort to revolutionize the transport industry. I turn on the bathroom light (light after all is the one thing that monsters hate) and proceed to relieve myself. The wave of euphoria that floods over me banishes my anxiety, and for a few brief moments, my life is simple, happy, and free of monsters.

Alas, all things must come to an end, and once the toilet flushed, I was faced with the reality of my return trip to bed. I shut off the light and tiptoe back to my room, avoiding the creaky floor boards so that he can’t hear me coming. I stop just short of the doorframe to my room. This is it; the home stretch. It’s also the most dangerous part of the journey, because this is his domain. If he is going to get me, this is when he’ll do it. I hate this part. I’m not athletic. I’m just a fat kid with anxiety issues. God did not create me to co-habitat with bed monsters. I’m a lover, not a fighter. Monsters don’t feel love though. They live to lurk and to torture little kids like me. They want to get me. I don’t know what they’ll do after that, but I have zero interest in finding out. I won’t let him get that far.

The time is now or never. It’s either make it to bed and sleep until morning, or fail and suffer the slings and arrows of the demon beneath. It’s a scant eight feet to my bed, so I close my eyes, hold my breath, and take off running. One step, two steps, three steps, four…then with both legs, I leap for all I’m worth. The jump is the most important part. If your feet aren’t in the air for those last few feet, there is a 70% increase in the chances of the monster grabbing your ankles. I swing my arms to gain momentum, because falling short is not an option. My eyes are sealed shut because should I fail, I don’t want to see what will happen to me. They are jerked open however when my face smacks into the mattress with some force. Having outfoxed the beast yet again, I curl up under my covers and slowly drift off to sleep. I win this round, but the funny thing about urination is that I’ll have to go again sometime.

The Truth Isn't Out There...But It Should Be

There was a news story during the last week or so that grabbed my attention like no other. No, it wasn't all of the Olympics hooplah, although I have been passionately following that (and not just for volleyball super-fox Kerri Walsh). It was three little words that appeared on one of my bored-time websites: "Bigfoot Corpse Found." Two bigfoot hunters in Georgia claimed to have bagged an honest-to-God sasquatch and were going to present their findings at a press conference the following day.

I knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be. I'm a rational person, plus I'm from the Show Me State, so I'm really in the camp of "incredible claims require incredible evidence". Every synapse I had
was firing "Bullshit!" when I heard about a frozen bigfoot being kept in a freezer. And yet, deep down in my heart of hearts, I wanted it to be true.

In fifth grade, I was obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster. I read every book about Nessie that I could get my nervous hands onto. I knew the history, the pictures, and more personal accounts than I care to admit. I wanted to go to Iverness, Scotland so badly just for the opportunity to waste a day sitting next to an ice cold lake filled with moss in the ever-present chance that the fabled kelpie would rise from the waves and grant me a personal candid interview. I've since outgrown Nessie and the likelihood of its exsistence. However, I still get pissed off when people film segments oon the Loch Ness Monster and show the infamous Surgeon's Photo as photographic proof that it is real. That picture is an admitted fake! Do some damn research! But I digress...

So, back to the latter-day Harry and the Hendersons. Deep down, that little kid inside of me perked up at the chance of bigfoot proof. I was never a big fan of the 'Foot; it always just seemed to easy to fake to me. As it turns out, my juvenile intuition proved to be all to true. The corpse was little more than a gorilla costume crammed into a freezer and the two cats who "found" it haven't been seen since. My only conclusion is that a real Bigfoot caught wind of what they were doing and called up his buddy:

"Hey, Frank. It's Marty."

"Hey, Marty, what's up, bra?"

"Have you seen this shit on the news? Two punks in Georgia claim that they caught one of us."

"Really? Alive or dead?"

"Dead, of course."

"No shit, I got a cousin that lives down there."

"Yeah well, don't bother calling him to find out if he's ok, because it's just some cocky motherfuckers trying to make a quick buck by stuffing a gorilla costume in a freezer. I'm getting so tired of this crap. They can't even get the appearance right. I don't look like a gorilla. They look more like gorillas than I do. I think I'm finally gonna do something about. I'm gonna track these sumbitches down and stuff their asses in a freezer and hold a press conference claiming to the bigfoot community that I have successfully captured the Great North American Douchebag. The difference? My corpses will be real."

"Well...you have fun with that, Marty. I'll talk to you later."

"Later, man."

(hangs up)

A man has to dream, doesn't he?