In perusing the news articles on the Internet about Carlin today, I came across what is being touted as his last interview, with Psychology Today's Jay Dixit, a phone conversation that took place just over 1o days ago. Because I'm sure PT was eager to get this out to the public quickly, the piece suffers slightly from being rushed, but it's still a great, recent collection of Carlin's thoughts and insights about his life and career. I found it particularly satisfying because he spends a good deal of time talking about language, creativity, and writing.

Where the interview piece falls short is in providing context. As it stands now, the piece is little more than a rough transcript. Again, I realize Dixit was rushed, so I'll try to cut him some slack. What I would have liked to have seen, though, especially since this is a magazine purportedly about psychology, was a commentary from Dixit on the related psychological constructs that were touched upon in the course of the interview. Dixit's questions themselves didn't seem to be directly seeking this sort of information (e.g., "How is it that you find things that are unexpected?" seemed not only a poor interview question for a psychology magazine article, but a poor question altogether), but Carlin came to the table prepared nonetheless, stating at one point "But I want to add an element I overlooked. Psychology. We're talking about a magazine called Psychology Today." He says he overlooked it, but it seemed more like Carlin's polite way of saying Dixit overlooked it and getting the interview back on relevant tracks.

There's a lot of rich material for psychological exploration in this interview. What I'm providing directly below here may just look like a lot of quotes taken directly from the article - and they are - but what I'm also doing, I hope, is providing that context I felt was missing by categorizing them under the psychological constructs to which they relate and providing links to further relevant information. (Granted, most of these links are to Wikipedia, not the most authoritative source for psychology content, but they cover the gist.)

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Nature VS. Nurture: "The Irish have a genetic tradition, it seems, an affinity for language and expression. And so I got that. The Irish say: "You don't lick it off the rocks, kid."
Child Development & Autonomy: "So I spent a lot of time on my own [as a child] . . . And I experienced that - because psychologists ask you not if something's good or bad, but how you experience it - I experienced that as freedom, independence, autonomy."
Adult Development &Generativity: "There are people who take something away from what I do, and I know that and it pleases me and I am proud of that."
Aging & Experience: "So, observations made by a 20-year-old are compared against a data set that is incomplete. Observations made by a 60-year-old are compared against a much richer data set. And the observations have more resonance, they're richer."

THE SELF
Personality (& Intelligence): "You can tell from my answers that I take what I do very seriously, and I think about it. But I don't really take myself that seriously. . . . I got the [school] work very easily, . . . so I had time to clown . . . . . I was the neighborhood cut-up."
Self-actualization: "Abraham Maslow said the fully realized man does not identify with the local group. When I saw that, it rang a bell. I thought: bingo! . . . I've never felt like a participant, I've always felt like an observer."
Temperament: "I don't live an angry life, not an angry person. I rarely lose my temper, can't remember the last time, never had a physical fight in my life, don't carry grudges, don't carry resentment either."
Creativity: "[M]y friend told me about Arthur Koestler’s book about the act of creation and it had a section on humor. . . . [T]he jester can be a thinking jester who thinks poetically."
Rationalization: "What's going on here? What's the ground floor? What's the reality? Let's look at the situation: so he's dead, she's hurt, and you don't feel good. OK, so let's figure this out."

CONFORMITY: "I am contemptuous of the mass . . . . It's the group behavior that I'm talking about on stage. . . . I'm not a collegial, I don't hang out . . . . If you belong to something it owns you, and I don't care for that."

MEMORY: When asked if he remembered his first joke, Carlin replied, "No. But I do remember the first time I ever made my mother laugh . . . . I wouldn't have remembered it as well as I do if it hadn't meant a lot to me."

LATERALIZATION: "When I harvest the pieces of paper and I go through them and sort them, the one lucky thing I got in my genetic package was a great methodical left brain."

LEARNING & MOTIVATION: "I think with anything you do over a long period of time, you should be getting better at it. I'm talking about craft, art, or drive that comes from inside."

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: "I use the [curse] words because I'm from that ethos. . . . It's a very effective language. . . . There's no shock value left in words. Humor is based on surprise, and surprise is a milder way of saying shock."

METACOGNITION: "As you're going along, you're thinking of what you're saying, you want to give it the proper vocal values, so you are kind of thinking about it, not reaching for the words, but kind of thinking about them. You're also aware of the echo of what you just said, and whether it worked or not, and what that might mean."

PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY: "See I had always been . . . a heavy user of marijuana, . . . a value-changing drug. . . . So, the LSD was a much stronger experience, and the mescaline, and I don't know what they did or how they did it, I just know that going through that gave me the confidence in these changes I was feeling, in this direction, this metamorphosis, I was in the middle of."

PSYCHOANALYSIS: "Comedy can also be based on describing one's inner self - doing anecdotes, talking about your own fears. Woody Allen taps into a lot of self-analysis in his comedy."

And, of course, the writer/editor in me also enjoyed his comments on writing: "The writing is what gives me the joy . . . . I love reworking, I love editing, love love love revision, revision, revision, revision." If only he were one of the authors with which I worked . . . Alas.

One other saying Carlin used in the interview that I liked was: "But even if I am a cynic, they say if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist . . . ." I guess that's because that's how I see myself sometimes - a disappointed idealist. Oh, and a rock licker (i.e., hopeful about the influence of nurture/environment).