The passivity of the little boys showed up in endless dawdling...and as Johnny so well put it, "I have no motor going inside of me."
Johnny...quite consciously avoided being enthusiastic about anything in order not to get himself excited. Jonny knew a lot and he knew nothing really...But Johnny never could utter any more than just this one remark, because he would never want to know more about any subject. It became especially clear in his analysis that he was not only afraid of probing any deeper into one or the other problem, but that learning also meant to him not yet knowing, a state that made him feel very insecure and restless.
Charlie...very definitely refused to grow up mostly for this reason: he was relatively safe as long as he participated in his mother's omnipotence...He played the dope because he wanted to be considered as a baby.
The idea: "I must not look closely but I nevertheless must know"...I am not allowed to know the truth, and I don't dare to really know it. But knowledge is power and protection. Therefore I will collect as much information as I can get on the surface and use it against the sisters.
The fear of terrible discoveries... a fear of surprises, i.e., a compulsion to immediately know something about everything and to quickly "label" it in a neurotic way. The fear of surprises is frequently based on the fear of one's own excitement.
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Headline Intelligence, Christine Olden, 1946
