My Vulgar Hero: 3 Ways Louis C.K. Reps for Emotional Health

I've been so excited to see the recent social media buzz about Louis C.K.'s Conan interview. While I feel like I showed up late to the LCK party, I've been making up for it over the past several months, watching his stand-up specials and stringing weeknights together with short episodes of his TV series.

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with him per se (partially because I don't think people belong on pedestals, partially because I think neither he nor my husband would appreciate it), but it took about 10 minutes of listening to him for me to decide that he's funny in a way I want to take seriously and he's smart in a way that feels important to our culture. Diving into his material has felt like research to help back that theory (how's that for a justification for watching TV?).

This is what I've come up with so far (warning: this post is PG, but links lead to R-rated content that's pretty vulgar and 1000% inappropriate for minors):

1. To start, as many are aware, LCK can summarize empathy, mindfulness and existentialism in a 5-minute late night interview. Seriously, what a gift. He describes the need to have contact with people in order to understand how we affect them, the importance of being present in a moment without reaching for a superficial distraction, and summarizes the human experience of sitting within a deep feeling of existential sadness—the fleeting, but nonetheless painful loneliness that we can feel by virtue of being human. He does this all while making you LOL.

Professors, yogis, and other sage leader types, take heed. Sometimes I think people complicate explanations of very simple (and relatable!) experiences. Not this guy. The end result? More people get the message.

2. Speaking of general human experience, one of the things I know to be truest in this world is that when we have a fixed way of thinking about how things are “supposed to be,” we miss out on the wonderful complexities of our version of this one life. LCK demonstrates that life is as it is, with it's beauty, disgust, happiness, sadness, success, failure, and everything in between. And it's better at some times versus others. He talks of divorce, parenting, aging, dating, friendship, the behavior of children, privilege, driving, you name it, with an honesty that captures the REALITY of the subject. 

His values are palpable, continually returning to the subject of trying to “do the right thing” and be “a good person,” but the packages these values come in are often a bit worn from wear (and almost always include a masturbation bit, but hey, this is his version).

3. And speaking of masturbation, LCK's character gives a voice to male self-consciousness and shame. Throughout his stand-up and his show he talks candidly (and often graphically) about his aging body. He reveals how compulsively he thinks about sex, even when he's simply wanting to take in the beauty of a woman. He shows scenes where he doesn't do the “manly thing,” where he doesn't quite know what to do; sometimes this happens in the presence of children, sometimes a love interest. All this has a take-me-as-I-am quality. It is what it is.

It isn't news that women collectively have more of a platform to dialog about shame and self-consciousness. We get to talk among ourselves, to say the least. And even with the societal acceptance of talking about feelings, it can be excruciatingly hard to do. So much goes unprocessed, negativity goes inward.

But men are silenced in an especially insidious way, experiencing their world—their bodies, drives, expectations—without being encouraged to process much at all. I think all of us, regardless of gender, are in danger of forgetting that the experiences are still there and can be very difficult to tolerate. Sometimes, in fact, they are so intolerable that they must be tempered with substances or acted out with aggression.

Cheers to LCK for just putting your experiences out there and proving that not only can they be talked about, but that you can have them and still be accepted. 

Imagine a lunch date with him and Brené Brown. Seriously. 

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