Work, Identity, and Annoyances

I don't feel like anybody

Written by My Intro-Writing Alter

A few weeks back, I discovered Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) influencers from Freddie deBoer’s piece on the subject. For the uninitiated, these individuals claim to hold multiple personalities (aka “alters”) within their body, each of which “front” their body at different times. Many have ridiculed these people, and I’m going to avoid doing that here. Most likely, these influencers are faking the affliction for attention, creative fun, and ad revenue. It’s also possible that they’re experiencing some other disorder that they misinterpret as DID. For my purposes, I’m less interesting in their motivations and more interested in why the content resonates with their audiences.

In an interview, one of the DID Youtubers mentioned that each alter posses his or her own age, height, and occupation. I struggle to understand how different personalities have different heights. I don’t feel like I’m 5’9.” I know that I’m 5’9” because the tape measure says so. I wouldn’t be channeling a second personality if I felt 6’4” or 5’2”. I’d be mistaken, just as I’d be mistaken if I felt that Chicago were the capitol of Illinois. In fact, I don’t feel much of anything about my body. Every morning, I weigh myself, measure my waist circumference at the naval and narrowest point, and look for any noticeable changes in body composition in the mirror. Every 6 months or so, I spend an embarrassing amount of money on a DEXA scan, which provides a precise measure of bodyfat percentage. If I could just intuit my weight and body composition, I’d save a lot of time and money. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like a person with 20% bodyfat. I don’t feel like anybody. I am me, and being me has entailed different body compositions at different times in my life. There’s no subjective experience of “20%-bodyfat-ness.”

And, no, I’m not insecure. What gave you that idea?

I think that fans of DID influencers misunderstand how being a person works. In one of the strangest examples, a DID YouTuber claimed to front a “sex alter” who acted in stereotypically horny manner. Sure, maybe she does have an alternative personality for sex. Or, maybe she just acts weird when horny like every other mammal. Have you seen a cat in heat? Across multiple influencers, I noticed that “alters” tend to fit narrow stereotypes. Some are creative while some are academic. Some are shy while some are outgoing. Of course, everyone sometimes makes creative things and sometimes performs mechanical work. Everyone feels more comfortable around some people and less comfortable around others. No one feels like their wholistic “true self” in all times and places.

Altogether, the YouTube DID scene combines two odd ideas: the concept that people feel certain material realities and the disbelief in human universalism. For an example of the former, one influencer people claims to have a doctor alter. 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. A doctor is someone who goes to work at a doctor’s office and does doctor stuff. With respect to the latter idea, a doctor feeling lost or confused at this job doesn’t indicate any neuroses. Everyone feels lost and confused sometimes, especially for difficult tasks. Again, I don’t want to denigrate influencers themselves. I highlight these two ideas not because a handful of YouTubers hold them, but because a huge chunk of the white-collar workforce does.

Imposter Syndrome

If you’ve spent any time around white-collar professionals (not recommended), you’ve probably heard the term “imposter syndrome.” It refers to the doubt many employees feel about their deservedness of their current job. At a basic level, self-diagnosed imposter syndrome seems self-contradictory. 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? Don’t you know that you deserve your job? Since the basic reading of it makes little sense, I’m going to extrapolate a little bit and guess that people don’t feel like they fit their job. People obtain a medical degree, complete their residency, and start seeing patients, but they don’t feel like a doctor. People sign the offer letter at Google and start committing to their codebase, but they don’t feel like software developers. Workers aren’t obtaining a certain feeling of belonging or fittingness that they expect from their career.

I’m reasonably self-assured in my career. Though not my ideal work, I find that my career fits my skills and personal strengths. I enjoy parts of my workday and feel accomplished when I see my output improves business operations. Sure, sometimes my work gets thwarted or delayed by bureaucratic nonsense or my own incompetence, but I never take that as a personal slight. Yet, I don’t feel like a real analyst. I don’t feel like anybody. I’ll reiterate what I said about height: I am always me, and being me currently involves doing a data analytics job for 40 hours a week. When I consider myself an analyst, I’m referring to a description of how I earn my income, not a mental state. I’m not even sure what it would mean to feel like a data analyst. Does it feel soft? Squishy? Cold? I doubt that such a subjective feeling exist, and I think anyone who searches for it will remain searching their entire lives.

Besides imposter syndrome, I see similarly hopeless asks from white-collar professionals: feeling “seen” at work, feeling in control, or feeling appreciated. I don’t want to dismiss these entirely. Many companies and bosses ignore their workers and treat them as little more than operation costs. That’s awful, and I respect anyone who fights against it. However, I often see these demands from the people who fill the most seen, most in control, and most appreciated roles at their companies. I suspect that these people are asking a bit more from their work than it can provide. You’ll sometimes feel useless because tons of work is genuinely useless. You’ll feel frustrated because some work is hard. You’ll feel like you have no control over everything because, well, you don’t. If CEOs can’t control their own performance, how much control can we expect from a Senior Operations Analyst II?

I don’t want to blame it all on capitalism either. Yes, I agree that many aspects of our modern economy denigrate people’s lives. I imagine that it’s much harder to find meaning when you barely afford your necessities, get fired for any reason, or can’t even sit down. I endorse the nationwide efforts to form unions, raise the minimum wage, and ensure universal healthcare. Unfortunately, these movements can’t solve everything. Unions can bargain for higher wages, but they can’t extract a sense of purpose from capital. Wall Street isn’t hiding a hidden reserve of “feeling appreciated.” For existential needs, you’ll always sit alone at the bargaining table.

Furthermore, I don’t think any utopia will make all work fulfilling. Some annoying stuff will always has to get done. Not everyone will get along. Individuals will pursue self-interested goals that undermine those of the organization. Someone will reach a position that they probably don’t deserve, and, individuals will find themselves in roles that don’t feel like a perfect fit.

Even if we free ourselves from the demands of the labor market, we’ll still face annoyances. I enjoy writing these articles, but I hate editing. In the near future, I expect that some startup will release an AI that can edit articles for readability and flow. When that day arrives, I’ll feed it my run-on sentences and let it do the boring work. Until then, I will continue to spend leisure time adding transition words to the beginning of sentences (I think “until then” worked pretty well) . I often hear people state that struggle and grind makes the result more worth it, but I think that that’s a conclusion in search of a premise. I enjoy attending hockey games, but I never think “damn, I can’t wait to use the restroom during intermission.” No, I won’t lose an ounce of fulfillment when Grammarly Skynet re-writes my blog posts. Frictions aren’t some hidden well of fulfillment. Life just involves things that suck.

At some point in my formative years, I convinced myself that I wasn’t a creative person. I never produced any art, learned to play a music instrument, or wrote anything outside of school. Naturally, this perpetuated my self-conception that I lacked creativity. I didn’t feel like a creative person, and I assumed that others did. Now, I’m not a blank slate guy. I’m sure there’s some genetic propensity towards creativity, and I imagine that I rank very low on that propensity. A few years back, however, I determined that my life should include some creative output. Since then, I’ve programmed a board game AI, worked on some simple art-and-crafts projects, and, of course, started the world’s best blog. I even started learning music theory a few weeks ago, and used that knowledge to write a basic, 30-ish second song. Is it a great song? No. Is it pretty good for someone who just started learning music theory? Still no. But, god damnit, I wrote music and taught myself that I am capable of occasional creativity. Yet, I still don’t feel like a more creative person. I don’t feel like anybody. I can and will continue to write more songs and publish more on articles on Substack. I never expect to reach a point where I feel like a properly Creative Person, though, and I doubt anyone ever has.