I really enjoyed this piece (thanks for linking to the Happy Wanderer, btw). I especially like your point that “alters” tend to be narrow, flattened stereotypes rather than full, complex individuals.
It reminds of of the planets in the Star Wars universe, actually. You have the desert planet, the ice planet, the ocean planet (or whatever you call that place Jar Jar Binks is from), the forest planet (Ewoks), etc. Every planet has one geographic feature, and that’s it. Even as a kid this seemed ecologically improbable to me. And it’s all the less likely that a human personality could have a single characteristic.
That being said, I am tall (5’10”), and it absolutely is a part of my personality, but probably because of the way other people react to me, rather than because of some ineffable internal truth.
Great piece. I really liked, “For existential needs, you’re always alone at the bargaining table.”
Of course masking some vital piece of who you are all the time at risk of professional consequences is a bad way to live - I’ve had it tough in workplaces where mentioning a girlfriend would likely have closed some doors to me. But there’s this idea now that the perfectly ordinary emphasizing and de-emphasizing of various facets of ourselves in different contexts is somehow dysfunctional - that the act of just.... deciding not to say something at a given moment, or of being mildly misunderstood in the most conventional possible way, is the same as being silenced.
I'm rather late here -- just catching up on reading. I liked this piece; yes, we tend to feel like ourselves, and that's pretty much all. We sometimes interpret that to mean something, but that's normally a result of how we view ourselves.
However, I do want to comment on something I see as a misunderstanding of an issue:
"If someone says “I have imposter syndrome,” they’re essentially saying “I think that I’m bad at my job, but I actually know that I’m good.” In that case, don’t you not actually have it?"
I haven't done any *real* research on imposter syndrome, so I'm not sure what if any clinical definition it has, but treating it as rational is a mistake. You're basically saying that a person claiming the problem is being irrational. Yes, that is the whole point. They cannot stop feeling inadequate in their job, *despite* having others tell them they are good at it, despite being promoted numerous times, despite being viewed as a leader on the team. I have this problem (though I don't call it imposter syndrome; I don't even know if that's a real thing; to me, it's a distorted sense of self-worth). I can rationally see that it's unlikely my performance is poor when all the evidence seems to indicate everyone else seems to think it's above average. However, I constantly see myself as unworthy of my job -- that if they knew about every time I shirked, or every time I made a dumb mistake (there are a lot), or that I'm nowhere near as smart or confident or skilled as I act, they'd realize I'm nothing special and they could (should) have hired someone much better.
Based on my rational assessment of my history and empirical position, I am better than average at my job. But I *always* feel inadequate and fear that people will realize how inadequate I am. It's an irrational fear, but feelings can be unbound by rationality -- and when they are, that's an indication something is probably wrong.
So much of this stuff feels like people trying really hard to raise "ordinary" to "special." Wow, you have multiple facets to your personality? You sometimes feel like you're not good at your job? Do you also sometimes feel hungry? Welcome to the human condition.
"To reiterate the point about height, I don’t think someone can feel like a doctor. 'Doctor' describes some people’s day-to-day tasks, not their internal mental state."
Yes, I think if a person "feels like" they're a doctor, and they're demonstrably not, that isn't having another personality -- it's experiencing a delusion. Still a problem, but quite a different one.
I really enjoyed this piece (thanks for linking to the Happy Wanderer, btw). I especially like your point that “alters” tend to be narrow, flattened stereotypes rather than full, complex individuals.
It reminds of of the planets in the Star Wars universe, actually. You have the desert planet, the ice planet, the ocean planet (or whatever you call that place Jar Jar Binks is from), the forest planet (Ewoks), etc. Every planet has one geographic feature, and that’s it. Even as a kid this seemed ecologically improbable to me. And it’s all the less likely that a human personality could have a single characteristic.
That being said, I am tall (5’10”), and it absolutely is a part of my personality, but probably because of the way other people react to me, rather than because of some ineffable internal truth.
Great piece. I really liked, “For existential needs, you’re always alone at the bargaining table.”
Of course masking some vital piece of who you are all the time at risk of professional consequences is a bad way to live - I’ve had it tough in workplaces where mentioning a girlfriend would likely have closed some doors to me. But there’s this idea now that the perfectly ordinary emphasizing and de-emphasizing of various facets of ourselves in different contexts is somehow dysfunctional - that the act of just.... deciding not to say something at a given moment, or of being mildly misunderstood in the most conventional possible way, is the same as being silenced.
I'm rather late here -- just catching up on reading. I liked this piece; yes, we tend to feel like ourselves, and that's pretty much all. We sometimes interpret that to mean something, but that's normally a result of how we view ourselves.
However, I do want to comment on something I see as a misunderstanding of an issue:
"If someone says “I have imposter syndrome,” they’re essentially saying “I think that I’m bad at my job, but I actually know that I’m good.” In that case, don’t you not actually have it?"
I haven't done any *real* research on imposter syndrome, so I'm not sure what if any clinical definition it has, but treating it as rational is a mistake. You're basically saying that a person claiming the problem is being irrational. Yes, that is the whole point. They cannot stop feeling inadequate in their job, *despite* having others tell them they are good at it, despite being promoted numerous times, despite being viewed as a leader on the team. I have this problem (though I don't call it imposter syndrome; I don't even know if that's a real thing; to me, it's a distorted sense of self-worth). I can rationally see that it's unlikely my performance is poor when all the evidence seems to indicate everyone else seems to think it's above average. However, I constantly see myself as unworthy of my job -- that if they knew about every time I shirked, or every time I made a dumb mistake (there are a lot), or that I'm nowhere near as smart or confident or skilled as I act, they'd realize I'm nothing special and they could (should) have hired someone much better.
Based on my rational assessment of my history and empirical position, I am better than average at my job. But I *always* feel inadequate and fear that people will realize how inadequate I am. It's an irrational fear, but feelings can be unbound by rationality -- and when they are, that's an indication something is probably wrong.
So much of this stuff feels like people trying really hard to raise "ordinary" to "special." Wow, you have multiple facets to your personality? You sometimes feel like you're not good at your job? Do you also sometimes feel hungry? Welcome to the human condition.
This is insightful. I just read something similar about gender: https://steveqj.substack.com/p/id-be-very-interested-to-know-what?s=r
Y’all are onto something.
DID was once maybe too many drinks.
"To reiterate the point about height, I don’t think someone can feel like a doctor. 'Doctor' describes some people’s day-to-day tasks, not their internal mental state."
Yes, I think if a person "feels like" they're a doctor, and they're demonstrably not, that isn't having another personality -- it's experiencing a delusion. Still a problem, but quite a different one.
I’ve seen very brief snippets of DID TikTok but don’t have the heart to dive in.
The DID TikTok challenge— find a semi-functional person on DID TikTok with whom you’d enjoy having a beer.