When Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, he was bringing us back from an extreme position.

It is also really important to notice what that position is in extreme contrast to.

I’m not into Freud, but anyone who has taken a psychology class knows why this phrase exists. Precisely because Freud made everything about sex. So the default as Freud establishes it, isn’t that when somebody is talking about a cigar they are actually referring to a cigar: the default is that they are not. They are usually talking about something else.

But Freud wants to make sure that we understand that most of our references have a subconscious character to them. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we really are just talking about cigars.

Perspective

As much as grammar nerds despise the common use of “literally” as an emphasis, I rarely see the same vitriol used about the words always and never.

We don’t take never literally. We often literally read it the same way: as emphasis.

We recognize the need to say something is really, really true almost all of the time. Not every single time, but nine times out of ten. Most isn’t going to cut it.

We get the meaning then. But not every time.

Back to Freud’s cigar.

Freud assumed people assume speech literally. If one is talking about a cigar, we must be talking about literal cigars. So he is proposing that we usually are not, but that we sometimes are.

Freud makes three moves:

1. He assumes we’re already thinking literally. Talking about cigars is only ever about cigars.
2. So he flips that assumption on its head. When we talk about cigars we are usually talking about something else.
3. Then he breaks the binary. It isn’t one or the other. Sometimes we are being literal.

We might call this reframing the argument. And this is a brilliant way of getting our minds under control.

Sometimes a Joke is Just a Joke.

I find this clip of Seth Rogan so helpful. He is naturally resetting the conversation around comedy and so-called cancel culture.

The point isn’t that jokes are always just jokes or that they are objectively funny for all time. Jokes aren’t supposed to be. But sometimes they are.

This strikes me as true about comedy. And really, much of what passes for a present response to the world in which we live.

Yes, sometimes comedy is timeless. But most of it isn’t. We need to flip that expectation in our heads to meet the one we already have in our hearts.

Few of us only laugh at the same things we did when we were nine years old. Or nineteen. Thank goodness.