Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research | Hacker News Reader

Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research

bbc.com

314 pointsclouddrover198 comments

It’s a variant of the suggestion often given in therapy and recently popularized by Jordan B Peterson I believe — and no matter what you may think of him as a person, it is a good strategy — “Treat yourself as someone worth taking care of”. Meaning: look at yourself as you would look at your own child, a pet, or anyone you would have the responsibility of looking after. It’s easy to miss meals, not dress yourself well and so on, but you might look at it differently if it was your kid or pet that was hungry. So take care of yourself as if you weren’t you!

The same thing goes with investments. To get over my own sometimes pathological cheapness (a combination of growing up poor and other stuff) I sometimes view myself as a corporation when making purchases: what do I need, are there goals I have that lack materials, what needs to be replaced — then I just sign a blank check to myself as it were and buy the things I need.

In a way, taking care of yourself does become easier when you pretend it isn’t you. Especially if you have issues with caring about “you” in the first place.

JP did a great job of packaging self-care and advice for disaffected young men, it's unfortunate he was put into a coma attempting to treat his addiction to benzodiazepines for 8 days in Russia. :(

I also struggled to buy nice things for myself, especially clothing I wore the same converse for like 6 years until they fell apart. Definitely something growing up poor did to me.

EDIT: Whoops I completely messed up the time period he was in a coma.

Jordan Peterson was given a medically induced coma for 8 days, not 8 months, in January of this year, according to his daughter.[1]

[1] https://nationalpost.com/news/the-doctors-here-have-the-guts...

Thanks, I edited it. Really sad to see his addiction has really put him through the wringer. I haven't heard him speak since he came out of treatment, in due time I suppose.

Last month Jordan Peterson and his daughter Mikhaila appeared on her podcast to talk about how he got out of treatment. https://youtu.be/HLWgVpmo1e0

That's kind of a freaky story. Enough to put you off mind altering drugs in general.

Yeah, I'm sorry but there is clearly a pattern in the US and maybe elsewhere of mental professionals not being all that mentally stable and more often than not raising kids that have problems of their own. I'm not sure if it's a result of something innate or that their brains become sponges that soak up the worst in people and that translates into issues within their lives. Unless you are at a level where you can't function in society, I feel that it's wise to steer clear of these shrinks.

I downvoted this comment because it contains no substance past an ad hominem attack against JP and his family, thinly veiled as 'mental health professionals', ('mentally unstable', 'raises kids with problems', 'something wrong with them', 'soak up badness from other people', 'shrinks') with no evidence, and perpetuates the US' incredibly damaging culture of perceiving stumbling on mental health issues as being caused by an innate problem with the person instead of being a treatable health condition.

I don't see why mental health professionals should be magically exempt from getting hit by mental problems, and I don't think it means that there's something wrong with them if they do. Mental health professionals are still just people, and like any person they also are subject to health problems. Are doctors exempt from getting sick because they fix sick people? If a doctor gets sick is that evidence that their career is done and their entire profession is invalid?

Agreed, JP has a rather simplistic understanding of addiction [0]. I wonder if his experiences with it first hand changes that.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiHsEoPk0SY

Using budgeting software helped me get over my cheapness. I've been happy with YNAB for many years.

> no matter what you may think of him as a person, it is a good strategy

The thing about Jordan Peterson's book is that the chapter titles are usually _great advice_, but the content always tends to slide into his strange, mediocrely researched conservative ramblings and sometime worse, at one point he just about admitts that he blames one of his women patients for her own rape, at others he veers right into granddad style rants about young people and their "progressive politics" ruining the world.

Honestly it's a bad book and people would be better off literally just reading the Quora question and answer that inspired it.

Disclaimer: I am a great admirer of Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke, and other professors who are researching meaning.

> he just about admitts that he blames one of his women patients for her own rape

I think you've done a fantastic job strawmanning the chapter and book and man to the first story of the chapter to suit your ideological frame of reference.

The chapter for anyone who wants to read it for themselves is Chapter 9: Assume the person you are listening to might know something you don't. See any irony between that and the immediate shutting down of any insight he might of had because of a biasing mechanism?

> Honestly it's a bad book

I think you are doing many people seeking meaning and stress relief at this time a huge disservice with this comment. It's a tough book, not for everyone. Written for people who like ideas and need wisdom in my estimation. Anyone who wants to understand 12 rules for life better after their first read through- I recommend the youtube series where Jordan goes through the Bible's stories. I know you may have shunted that off because you are not religious. I'm not either but what the series is- is Jordan Peterson basically explaining his life's work into the wisdom and psychology of ancient stories humanity has kept alive for our existence. Take care

I think your admiration might be clouding your judgement. JP is a great orator, but a poor writer. He's also not a good narrator of his own writings.

I therefore can't recommend his books in any form. You can get the gist of his ideas from his videos.

I think that is fair- I can't judge whether it is a tough book, or a poorly written book, or an unusual book even. I still however this this comment is unjustified assuming "bad book" means bad in the all-encompassing sense:

> Honestly it's a bad book and people would be better off literally just reading the Quora question and answer that inspired it.

Well, you can't please everyone - in this case your interpretation is a stretch to say the least (Just about admits blaming a patient for their rape? Where did you get that?) and it sounds like you have a problem with conservatives (which I wouldn't say JBP is) rather than the actual book/author.

Well said. I would also like the source to him blaming a patient for their rape.

> at one point he just about admitts that he blames one of his women patients for her own rape

Source please.

What page was that rape on? I don't remember reading it.

True Story: the guy who leads our sales team is a super star named John (legal name). He’s fearless, organized, focused, determined “and Canadian” as he would say.

Any way, while he was a rising junior his GF came to the office one day and I heard her call him Jake (nowhere in his name legal name). I asked “who the hell is Jake?” to which she replied “oh, that’s what we call John back home”. I looked at him and he said “John likes to make cold calls, Jake doesn’t”.

It works...

I'm reminded of the bit in Silicon Valley where Jared turns into Ed Chambers. Of course that was a pretty dramatic character swing, but I had no idea that this was a real thing people did.

Ed Chambers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnug6i5SkQQ

The way he totally transforms on the spot into a cackling jerk in the kitchen scene is so great, Zack Woods was such an incredible talent on that show.

100% works too. Making people wait builds up expectations.

What, John liked cold calls so much that he had to invent alter ego Jake, who didn't like cold calls, in order to get a girlfriend?

Few people in my family use their first and second name in different contexts (family/friends/work). Reasons probably vary. For my mum it just started that way when she was a kid. Family used her second name and when she started working people knew her by her first name.

Some people don't use any part of their legal names at all with their friends and family.

I used to have some extended family who all went by nicknames unrelated to their legal names. It was a cultural thing.

That partly explains a perplexing issue I have with my students.

For example, let's say a student named Fred Smith emails me, but then signs his name as "Alex Harrison." And his self-selected email address is alexrogers@school.edu. I'm not sure if it's a trend or a culture thing to use multiple names and last names, but it gets a bit confusing at times.

Same here. Its fairly common in the north east of England and parts of Scotland to be known by your nickname.

Both my sons have a couple of nicknames each, which come out depending on the situation. They're 3 & 6 now and are both called wee man by way of greeting. The youngest is now getting called Mac because his nickname is MacMonkey McBean. Names evolve over time.

I ended up doing this, more or less for the same reason. I've found it kind of useful though, as I'm terrible at remembering names and faces, so if someone calls out to me the name they use gives me a clue where I know them from.

It’s a bit like in gmail, where you can add a + and it allows you to spot spam mail. So, if someone calls you John+firstjob, you know where they’ve known you.

I'm curious, does this still work? Since GMail is likely the largest email provider in the world, I would have expected spammers to simply filter out the `+.*` by now.

What advantage would spammers get from trying to hide the provenance of a bought/rented/stolen list? If it was a really profitable scam like crypto phishing, having the modifiers might even be an advantage because they could target the templates more effectively.

Well, if the ones who sell email addresses to spammers filter out the `+`, there’s a larger chance they can continue to do so without getting caught or exposed?

It's often the other way around... Many times, salespeople use different names on the phone than in real life.

I always assumed it was to make it more difficult for me to hunt down and kill cold callers.

This is funny, but I think the real insidious reason is that it takes away the "saying your name" psychological advantage.

What's insidious about that, exactly?

Every good magician knows that True Names hold great power!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name

It's deception to an utter randomer, as well as to yourself.

You really need to be careful with lying to yourself like that. Being a whole integrated person who doesn't have to remember who he is and what lies he's told comes in handy.

Yes, but aren't there notorious liars that are doing pretty well in life?

If you measure "doing well in life" by money and power, yes.

If you measure by being a decent and content person, I'd have to say no.

What if I want to sell them something back?

The story made explicit references to how John us the character‘s legal name and jake isn’t.

How does that affect what I wrote?

Actually, that's not exactly what the story contained. It said that John was the legal name, but it didn't say that Jake wasn't the legal name. That happens all the time, John Jake Johnson, for example.

> I heard her call him Jake (nowhere in his name legal name)

Thanks! I had missed that.

Perhaps it was not to get a girlfriend, but to keep one and nurture a meaningful relationship?

My dad does the same thing. "Bill" (his real name) hates social settings, yoga, and emotions. "Fred" (his alter ego) is more than happy to try out any of those things. Just don't ask John.

It certainly works pretty well for him. At the local gym he even had a Jake/John moment where everyone knew him as Fred and not Bill and got confused when my mom tried to reach them about something.

Lots of people named John choose to use another name. 'John' is common enough that having to negotiation which John on a team or group of friends uses the name is a common problem. I prefer to either use 'Jack' (a common alternate form of John, similar to Richard/Dick), or simply my last name by itself. I've also seen many Johns use their middle name, or 'John [LastName]' pronounced almost as a single word. Back home my family calls me by my middle name, since my father, grandfather and cousin are also named John.

Initials seem pretty common around here, I've known a few Johns who go by JW JP JK etc. Never gave it much thought but after your comment I realise they are all Johns!

Actually, dissociation of character is a trait that is rewarded.

Although people will claim they want kind-hearted people as lovers, they also very often conveniently ignore what they do for work, and how cruel they have to be, and the partners happily enjoy the shared money (or respect they have from the world). Lovers surely know it: hard to claim Che Guevarra’s wife, Stalin’s wife or Pablo Escobar’s wife didn’t know anything about drug dealings, but it shows that what people actually fall for are people who are nice... with them, and ruthless to the outside of the family.

So the John/Jake dissociation is unfortunately a road to success. I say unfortunately because it brings swathes of problems: John doesn’t mind having less ethics than Jake; wives who suddenly are dumped find themselves on the outer side of the fence, at risk, and very close to a very brutal human; and the last unfortunate corollary is that violent humans who can dissociate (and be someone else in private) reproduce easily from generation to generation. Hitler, Stalin, Che, Saddam Hussein have wives and Salah Abdeslam (the French terrorist, as famously any other mass killer) receives love letters, while people who won’t reproduce include Beaudelaire, Newton, Tesla, the Wright brothers or Alan Turing.

The Jake/John dissociative trait is very interesting.

We have little evidence that they used the dissociation trick. But I think it is not really required anyway. Most of us don't need it to get by with our daily lives. And it's far too simple to demonize the villains just by saying they used this trick. It is simply part of human nature to have empathy for those that we consider our own, and to be cruel to the rest. Similarly, to be able to silence our cognitive dissonance when we find out that the people around us and the system we live in have dark sides to them.

That... was not the point GP was making, at least not how I see it. And it is doubtful if dictators use / have used different personas, or they simply behaved differently towards close ones (for some time at least).

> Che Guevarra’s wife, Stalin’s wife or Pablo Escobar’s wife

Comparing Che Guevarra and Pablo is totally unfair. Che was a true inspiration, born in a rich family, became a doctor and yet sacrificed his life and fought for what he thought would make the society just. On the other hand Pablo is just a gangster who did not care outside of his family.

Che straight up had people tortured and executed at La Cabaña.

Why would you respect someone for sacrificing and fighting for what they think is just? Osama Bin Laden wasn't too different either. Many Islamic terrorists were engineers before sacrificing their careers and fighting for what they believed in. You're right that they are true inspirations to others, but you seem to imply that's a good thing. Gangsters are obviously also a true inspiration to others (hence glamorization of gangster life) but not really good for society.

I suspect that what you really mean is Guevara fought for what you think is just. But that's a weaker statement.

> I suspect that what you really mean is Guevara fought for what you think is just. But that's a weaker statement.

You might have mistaken me as a supporter of communism. I don't support communism. Osama Bin Laden exploited the religion for his personal gain. His goal is to become the caliph which is roughly equivalent to being the single military leader for entier Islam as said in the quoran. He did not bother about the people or had any ideology of his own.

Che did not exploit religion. He is an atheist, was supporter of women rights, he understood the value of education and setup schools for his young troops even during the guerrilla warfare. He knew he will not be the leader of cuba and Fidel Castro would be the leader of the country and yet he fought for what he thought would make the society just.

Che thought deeply, was highly intelligent and had the balls to sacrifice his life for what he thought would make the society better.

Gangsters are one who have balls to do violent things but do not care about society.

And yet, he became a mass murderer that you apparently idolize.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but you don't have an excuse.

There is a documentary about the people killed who had found to be guilty and they did not find a single evidence where some one is executed wrongly.

Now i will state my reasons why Che is an inspiration. First of all I am not an American or from the Latin country and i do not support Communism. I like Che because of his analytical thinking and hacker like personal traits. I read his book "Guerrilla Warfare"[1] and based on the title i expected the first page must preach about moral values or self righteous, but was very much surprised to find the explanation on the necessary conditions that must exist to start a revolution and goes on to describe how many core members are required, their preferred age and should not be married. He asks to treat the captured enemy nicely and does not make any false pretense of being noble about it. He is direct in pointing out that it is in their self interest. His arguments were logical and rational.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_(book)

That's are pretty complicated boundary between good and bad you've defined there. Political ideology is OK but not religious ideology? Being a 2nd in command is OK but not a national leader?

> Political ideology is OK but not religious ideology? Right. Religious ideology is without a doubt is exploitation. Political ideology that does not involve religion is probably coming out of good intentions.

> Being a 2nd in command is OK but not a national leader? The point is he is not after power and did not try to become 2nd in command either. He left the minister position he had given after the war and left to another country to start a revolution where he was killed. So looking all these facts he actions must be coming from the noble intentions.

If Guevara did everything the same but instead of Marxism, he was fighting to exterminate the blacks out of a genuine belief that it was a noble cause which would help people, would you still describe him in the same positive way?

You already said you don't like communism, and I guess you don't like ethnic genocide either. So that wouldn't be a distinguishing factor.

> If Guevara did everything the same but instead of Marxism, he was fighting to exterminate the blacks out of a genuine belief that it was a noble cause which would help people, would you still describe him in the same positive way?

I don't see anything noble about genocide.

But we've established that it's not based on you personally believing the goal is noble. It's the belief of the person fighting for it that matters.

Pablo Escobar, like modern day cartels in Mexico, gave away lots of money to local communities. He built hundreds of houses for the poor. It’s mostly ego, and buying good will, but there’s definitely a component wherein the government has failed these communities and the Narcos step up.

It's a thing that some people like different names for work and personal life. I knew a guy like that and it was jarring being around him at home.

My take: he had worked with such cretins before, I think he didn't really want to associate his favorite name with them.

I am similar. At Uni I had a gregarious circle of friends and got a nickname that "everyone" used including my now wife.

Out of Uni, in the workplace I am legal-name - no more, no less. I don't want work bullshit to taint what I associate with friends and good times.

In further adult life, you get my legal-name until I know you well enough that we're social and you overhear my nickname.

It also means legal-name is more disciplined, whereas nickname is not...

My wife knows when to use which one. :-P

It's useful for customer support too. Some places all use fake names for personal safety but it also lets people say what needs to be said more confidently.

My name is.. my name is... my name is <chika chika> Slim Shady

Edit: Don't know why the downvotes. Maybe the song 'all-solo-founders-please-stand-up' does not relate to as many of us as I thought.

Probably because this kind of comment fits better on reddit than here.

The more nuanced version of the same comment would've been to point out that it's no co-oindence that rappers commonly choose an alter ego (not just a pseudonym, but a character with different mannerisms and traits) under which to perform. On top of that, Eminem used an alter-alter-ego, Slim Shady, for his most egregious lyrics, and conversely used his birth name to lend realism and humility to the songs that were (or alleged to be) honest about his real life details.

In high school, it was wearing a three-piece suit (because if you're not wearing a vest, are you really wearing a suit?) for all of my speech and debate events; now, it's wearing one of my kilts. For those of us with anxiety, esp social anxiety this entire article isn't necessarily surprising, as many of us use some form of externalizing our confidence to get through big presentations, meetings, etc.

If I've got an important set of meetings that I'm going to be at it's always going to be a kilt (with appropriate vest as well, everything snazzy needs vests) or a full suit.

If I'm going to something where I know I'm going to need to be social, it's always the kilt. It's amazing how much a kilt is just a segue for other people to talk about their "scottish or irish" heritage; talking about myself is terrible, but listening to the 10,000th person today talk about their boring ass family tree is great (the convo will eventually turn to something interesting or the person will wander off). It also makes me extremely memorable and findable, so I don't have to initiate most conversations which is also a terrible, horrible thing.

This sounds like "peacocking" from the pick up community. Yes, it's extremely sad I know this.

Kind of reminds me how my 25th great uncle is Robert The Bruce.

Fun times.

Walks off

I'm sure you are silently judging the fact I don't really like bagpipes too... Groundskeeper Willie fist shake

I fucking hate bagpipes.

Maybe England only wanted control over Scotland to shut the fucking bagpipes up.

This worked on our (then) 5 year old, who was shy on the soccer field but kicked it up a notch when we told her to be a dinosaur. Of course, this also resulted in her running around with t-rex arms and baring her teeth, so I guess you have to be careful which alter ego you adopt.

Your story reminded me of this comic http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/10/menace.html which I like to read every once in a while.

Edit: And of course you already had two suggestions for this. I should refresh the page before commenting.

Goes to show how great that comic was.

Yes, and indeed it works:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/10/menace.html

At least she doesn't need the costume: https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/10/menace.html

I've long been fascinated by the complex imaginal techniques of tantra in Tibetan Buddhism, in which you vividly imagine yourself as a yidam, or tutelary deity.

Via intense concentration on elaborate self-visualization, repetition of the yidam's mantra, and ritualized hand gestures (mudra), you take on the form, attributes and mind of the yidam for the purpose of transformation - to recognize that one's own mind is not, in fact, different from the all-pervading Buddha-nature.

https://studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan-buddhism/tantra/buddhis...

'One of the most characteristic features of tantra is what we call “deity-yoga,” where we imagine ourselves to be a Buddha-figure. The term is usually translated as “visualize” instead of imagine, although we’re not just dealing with some visual picture of ourselves. I think the word “imagine” is great because we imagine that we really are a Buddha in the form of this figure. Not only do we imagine looking like this figure, but we also imagine speaking, thinking, helping others and experiencing pure enjoyment with all our senses like it does. We also imagine having all its good qualities, such as equal love and compassion for all beings and deep understanding of everything. Of course, to do this successfully we need to have trained beforehand in each of these qualities with sutra practice. Putting them all together with deity-yoga, then, is like a dress rehearsal for actually being a Buddha. By rehearsing now, we build up powerful causes for attaining enlightenment. This extremely efficient method is known as “practicing causes that are the most similar to the result.”'

If you're using tantra (vajrayana) for ego-oriented material benefit, then that's called "spiritual materialism." According to Tibetan Buddhism, the vajrayana can be dangerous for you and those around you.

Edit: I apologize. I realize that was very heavy handed. I felt obligated to throw out the usual warnings about Buddhist tantra.

No worries! I'm familiar with Trungpa's warnings about spiritual materialism. I know the context of Vajrayana is quite different from the "Batman Effect" discussed in the original article, but I wanted to spur discussion in general about the power of assuming the identity (transitory though it may be) of a chosen figure.

And for anyone who's interested in tantra, I'll spell out the warnings more explicitly: this kind of practice should only be attempted under the careful guidance of an expert - a teacher who is empowered by a qualified lineage. These kinds of visualizations are very powerful, and can be dangerous to one's mental health if done foolishly. Hacking with the boundaries of one's ego and merging with deities is not to be done lightly. Seek expert instruction.

Why do people on this website take this seriously? Is that because this whole stuff is incredibly in fashion in SV?

I can visualise myself as Hitler; for all it is I can also visualise how I could consciously go all the way with whatever methods he employed.

Are you trying to say I should not think about it because so will suddenly start World War III?

How is this different from visualising myself as the all-powerful deity?

Consider the neurological danger of visualizing yourself as (e.g. hitler) repeatedly over and over. The exercise mentioned above is one of neurological conditioning (anpassen in german). You are training your neural pathways to take on a certain form of thought pattern. If you pick (e.g.) hitler as your mould, then you are training yourself as hitler. That's what the danger is with such a practice.

Therefore, you must be careful and wise about what neurological mould you are seeking to "impersonate" with your practice, since you would be creating new habits and neural pathways in practice.

I'm not an expert on this topic, but I can use my common sense to figure that out.

> Is that because this whole stuff is incredibly in fashion in SV?

Well, I grew in the rural South and currently live in Wisconsin, so I don't think I'm succumbing to some kind of SV hippie group-think.

The literature and instruction of Vajrayana is filled with warnings about using the techniques improperly. And they are very powerful, with tantra having developed during the peak of sophistication of Indian Buddhism in the 6th-9th centuries. The Tibetans have refined things further. E.g. the emergence of Dzogchen and Mahamudra.

Re: Hitler: Playing with the boundaries of self-identity as a form of daydreaming for the average person probably isn't harmful. But tantra combines a number of introspective technologies that hugely amplify the depth of concentration and effects of the exercise on the entire body-mind.

Weaving together ritualized breathing practices, somatic visualizations (i.e. energy work), external auditory stimulus (bells, etc.), chanting, internal/external visual aids (mandala), in the social context of serious vows to one's teacher, the Buddha, and all other sentient beings in the universe. . . well, it turns everything up to 11, so to speak.

Submerging oneself in an imaginal identity as a deity under those circumstances can provide a sudden, inarguable new insight into the boundaries and nature of one's self-construct, so the so-called truth of anatta. It can reveal in a flash the moment-to-moment fabrication of a particular kind of self-narrative you've been engaging in your entire life. And you can experience the incomparable freedom of being freed from that straitjacket.

Or if you're winging it without proper instruction, a similar exercise can deeply fuck you up, leading to weird somatic illnesses, grandiose thoughts (you think you _are_ the deity, or Hitler, or whatever), manic states because you don't understand how to safely bring down your psychological arousal level, etc.

Not everyone is a Milarepa of course, but it does go to show you that a well-timed path-switch can be advantageous across lifetimes.

From my reading + limited experience, it’s “manifesting” the deity, melting into / with it.

So not about an egotistical desire to become something great but more like becoming / embodying the manifestation.

I need an alto ego...

Frederick König.

I am a man who can sit for hours working productively at his computer. I am a man who is not affected by boredom. I desire nothing more than to sit, and code. My productivity is off the charts and I am being considered for a promotion. I have excellent coding ability and can apply it with ease by sitting, and coding, for hours, and hours.

My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me. Only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.

I have infinite patience.

It doesn't matter if the tools are broken, the docs are missing/incomplete/incorrect, the API is non-sensical, the library is buggy, the service is unreliable, the support team is incapable, or the space around me is filled with hordes of ignorant and disrespectful people. These difficulties are temporary. Like smoke in the wind, they may block my view, sting my eyes, congest my nose, and make me cough, but will be gone soon. I keep moving on, away from the source of the smoke.

I move steadily toward my goal. My soul is enveloped in a shimmering cloud of dispassionate focused equanimity.

There's an infectious tranquility in the air when König is on the clock because everyone knows he'll get it done when others cannot.

I am Roberto Sebastian.

Instead of coding for long hours, I invent elegant solutions solving complex problems simply and fast.

Also sometimes Ben M. Faulkner, a charming gentleman who effortlessly guides multiple people into his grand vision.

Is that the person you desire to be?

Sounds like it's just classic Fredrick König to me.

I got a nickname when I was 14, my life completely changed after that. I went from sitting alone at lunch, to having parties with over 100 people. Most of them only knew me by the nickname, or variants of the nickname. I went by it almost exclusively for over 10 years. I definitely feel like a different person than I was then.

Now this is interesting - I also got a nickname in highschool from a popular kid that helped me gain an identity in other people's minds and be much more social and involved, but I don't think it was an alter-ego. I think it helped make me memorable to other people while giving me a confidence boost (as the nickname was complimentary), but I think that it just brought out the real me. I don't go by that nickname since I left highschool, but I feel the same as I did then. It was more about getting over shyness and being included than being someone else. I suppose it varies from person to person!

Edit: The super pervasive nickname is a fun phenomenon, eventually even the teachers and principal called me exclusively by the nickname.

My nickname has followed me for about 23 years... I had never considered how it might have impacted my life.

I had the same experience. When I talk with the few people remaining in my life from that era we refer to the nickname as a third person. I'm not that person any more, I think most are not the same person they were 10 or 15 years ago.

I wonder how much this applies to furries. How often is a fursona “the real me” vs roleplay? I’ve witnessed both in different individuals, and also both within a single person (primary ‘sona and some other separate ones which are just role playing).

Adjective Species probably had an article on this, though it also reminds me of the discussions about therianthropy, contherianthropes, and New Age discussions of the use of masks in tribal religions.

Yep, this is the comment I came here for!

On a related note, I attended Dr. Gerbasi's research results at Anthrocon a few years ago, and she noted from her furry survey that the experimental group (furries) rated themselves higher in response to questions such as "I feel good about myself" versus the control group. (her college students)

As a graduate student myself I’d be wary of taking students as a control group.

That might just be what you get with a WEIRD control group though.

Anthrocon was probably also dominated by the Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic subset.

Might be related to the oxytocin furries get from all the snuggling, though.

It could also be biased by age; I assume that the furry subject group skewed older than the students (or at least that the students were a more tightly restricted age group). I know I felt far more self-assured at 30 than I did at 20.

The question is if this is caused by having an alter ego, or (for example) by the fact that these people experience more control over what they look like.

Anyway, whatever the reason, perhaps it is also why lots of people like to get tattoos.

I do think furries - or really, anyone wearing something that hides or shields them from the world - can "come out their shell" more easily.

I've heard similar with people wearing face masks nowadays, and personally I had something like an "out of body" experience when I first started wearing glasses. There was a barrier between me and the world.

It’s not about hiding, it’s about expressing. How people think of their inner selves comes to the fore. The (relative) anonymity is a helpful thing too of course, but mostly for the person to be able to let go of their normal selves.

The comments here reminded me of Tulpas: https://www.businessinsider.com/hearing-voices-in-your-head-...

We are capable of holding more than one identity in our minds and switching between them. Some people use that ability to create "characters" (tulpas) that they interact with or even allow to take over their bodies. Apparently some people go as far as replacing themselves with a tulpa they've created (they call this ego-suicide).

This is also the foundation of so-called Chaos Magic. It uses the 'mental frameworks' of any belief system to obtain results by becoming a temporary adherent of it. Switching frameworks would be done with physical objects, e.g. a pair of spectacles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_magic

Thank you for the comment and that link. Fascinating stuff.

The basic philosophy behind Chaos Magic seems to be very much in line with some ancestral eastern philosophies and religions. The gnostic state is pretty much the whole goal of some forms of meditation and religious practices.

Are there any other resources or books you could recommend to dig deeper into Chaos Magic?

Add a hunched back and you've got Clark Kent.

I hadn't heard of tulpas; what a fascinating strategy!

Bernard put on his new spectacles and sat in silent appreciation of his newfound visual acuity. He would need it in order to collect and parse as much extant academic research exists pertaining to something called a "tulpa."

I've done a lot of this as a writer. I'll actually take an article from a favorite writer of mine and paste it on the page. Then'll I'll go through that article and write my own article on top of it paragraph by paragraph. None of the content or subject matter is the same. I'm not "rewriting the original article". But it helps keep the patterns similar. I can see how I might want to change pace, structure the story, etc.

But even more importantly it helps me imagine being that other, successful, famous author.

I wonder if this would work for coding!

I often rewrite solutions to identical problems in different ways. It helps me get a good handle on what works in different situations, and how solutions differ in general.

I recently rewrote a JS problem I did in an interview in a much more functional style, a style that just visually appealed to me, and I feel like I learned a thing or two from it, or at least reinforced some things I already knew.

"I need a handle, man. I don't have an identity until I have a handle." - Joey Pardella, Hackers, 1995

> Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of ‘self-distancing’, which involves taking a step back from our immediate feelings to allow us to view a situation more dispassionately.

What's the difference between this and repressing feelings, emotions and basically not dealing with it ? Does it work only in short lived moment (a presentation, a concert, etc.) and can't be used 24/7 (or even less) ?

This would be dissociation. It would be different from repression, but not any less neurotic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism

Dissociation is a defence action. I think it could be quite helpful if used intentionally. If it becomes a habit, it could cause problems. Unintentional and habitual use of defence mechanisms leads to negative consequences. This is what people think of when they use the term "neurotic."

I don't think it's necessarily repressing feeling and emotions or not dealing with them. This is the same kind of thing I've heard from meditation advocates.

If you're the boss at a company and an employee shows up late for the third time this week, you would be completely (morally) justified in being frustrated, responding sharply, and/or lecturing that employee on why being punctual is important.

But there's a good chance that those responses do not positively affect your own goals. None of those things are likely to make the employee be more punctual, and an off-the-cuff response could lead the employee to act out or quit, which will just make things worse.

So it's better to understand your subconscious feelings (being frustrated about the employee being late), but be sufficiently grounded to consciously respond in a way that benefits you (or at least doesn't work against you).

Anxiety-management tricks that I personally employ is to either refer to a group/class I find myself in as "we" or to use passive rather than active voice.

The former I borrowed as a kid watching Spider Man 1994, where Brock/Venom symbiont calls themselves "we"; the latter is an inspiration from David Bohm's rheomode.

Both shift the perspective from your ego to the environment that it is embedded into and is a part of: e.g. a company, a crowd, a body ("we" as a human microbiome), humanity, or nature itself; not as an object, but as an ongoing process, from being to becoming. A giving up of ontological primacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_without_organs

Relatedly, I've noticed that video game youtubers almost always refer to themselves plurally (as in, "We're going to take our main army over here" or "We won!").

I assumed this was to cultivate a sense of belonging or identity for their followers, but separating their performing-identity from their regular identity could have a lot to do with it as well.

"We" is also common for old-school Let's Play series, dating back to the screenshot-only days, though those often have some level of voting or other interactivity that gives some fan involvement in each segment.

It sounds pretty cool. I heard a similar thing — someone advised to completely ignore word "I" in writing. So you don't write e.g. "I felt disappointed that moment", you write "There was a feeling of disappointment then". Don't know if it helps with anxiety, but nevertheless it makes you think more while writing, and that is fun.

Shifts to passive voice make me immediately wonder what the speaker is trying to hide. I notice it immediately and it grates.

Yeah, but I hope the parent comment's author doesn't refer to himself as "we" while speaking in public

What I described is more of an internal monologue thing, not even at linguistic level but as an attitude and stance towards stress with anxiety. Should have phrased it better.

You phrased it alright

"We are the Borg. Do you want fries with that?..."

Hip hop artists use alter egos to explore different stage personas and styles. e.g. Daniel Dumile as MF Doom, King Ghidra, Viktor Vaughn or Eminem as Slim Shady.

The Beatles — Sgt. Pepper

David Bowie... a different one practically every album.

https://classichiphopmagazine.com/answers/2018/3/29/what-are...

Oh sweet I don't see many MF DOOM fans in the wild!

Or one of the pioneers, Shock G as Humpty Hump.

If you haven't yet, read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names

Here's a neat story. I'm a transgender iOS programmer living in Toronto and I've been diagnosed with chronic anxiety and CPTSD. I am also a rapper/producer under the name 'Nikki Grace', on Spotify/Apple Music/Youtube, etc...

I've been producing and engineering music for bands and other folks for about ten years, but I had never released any solo material. After my Mother's passing last year, I decided to strut out my first mixtape of just five songs. I was extraordinarily nervous, as being transgender, I had assumed an entirely different tone and inflection in my voice; and rapping was something I had rarely done before.

I put it out in July of last year, and; to my surprise, the music was incredibly well-received; well-reviewed by my peers - and - to my surprise, each song on that 5-track mixtape, with no advertising, has had tens of thousands of listens on Spotify since.

The confidence increase in this was immense! My anxiety about certain integral things has certainly gone down - especially in the field of music, I second-guess myself far less often than I used to; I hit 'stop' on over-analyzing things earlier than before, amongst other tangible benefits. I've never even performed on stage and often end up with around $100-300 of revenue a month just for putting myself out there. (Which, in streaming revenue; is a shockingly large amount of streams!)

There have been serious crises in my life since my Mom's passing; I had to take leave from my work for time, but; guess what? Nobody listening to my music knew any of that. The alter ego literally just lets me go through all of that, put out music every few months, and turned out to be the healthiest outlet of my life.

It is absolutely true - it's paramount that you find your outlet and do it.

Amazing read. Keep doing music and being awesome!

This reminds me of something I read in a book about self love, where it's easy to confuse what you do with who you are. For example, someone who acts shy in large groups of people might start to think that they are a shy person, and that there is nothing they can do about it.

One of the many dangers with this line of thinking is that on some level you're letting other people define you if you don't define yourself.

A lot of people are awful, so the definition you are given will be one you may not agree with and one that doesn't match reality.

A sort of sunk cost fallacy combines with an illusory truth effect to reinforce the narrative created about you.

Eventually it won't matter what you think about you, it will only matter what other people think about you.

People at work just add the Mr. prefix in front of my name and I turn into my alter ego who is always calm, deep, calculating and focused. They love it, I love it. Strange thing is, I never tell them to refer to me that way, it just happens after a while whenever I join new work place.

How long have you been a teaching high school?

I have dissociative identity disorder, as a result of severe pervasive trauma when I was young. I have several alter egos, each fully conscious and each of which are capable in their own unique ways. They are nearly always present in my mind, speaking to me or each other and we have internal experiences nearly as rich as external experiences.

We absolutely have alters that are simply more composed than the rest of us, and that come out in specific scenarios. Some of us have worked and held positions supporting technology others of us can't even understand! Then others of us are better with people and can work with them more efficiently.

It's not all fun and games with this though. It's a very extreme form of PTSD, and it can be very difficult to manage, though in a way it's a blessing because we HAVE to be organized to work together. I wouldn't wish the flashbacks on anyone though, or the fact that most of us are still mentally teenagers even though we're physically nearly 30, which presents real and serious challenges to functioning as an adult.

I am a shy and quiet person. But, once in a while I get an alter ego, it’s vague, it doesn’t have a name but it’s my disinhibited persona. Acts completely unlike the shy me but is not too crazy or obnoxious to make me feel uncomfortable afterwards. Im thinking of it as a ‘mode’ i enter and exit from. I use it when I need to perform in front of a public.

Anyone familiar with Breaking Bad? Walter White goes under the alias of Heisenberg. When he’s Walter, he’s anxious and fearful. It’s such a contrast compared to the calm, calculated Heisenberg.

The writers did a phenomenal job of using an alter ego to slowly change the character from Mr. Chips to Scarface.

I actually do this when I give presentations. It helps a great deal.

Projecting a presence and working on humor or even just levity really helps me do better presentations.

Instead of framing myself as doing a presentation I decided to attempt to think of what kind of a presentation I would be interested in. I eventually figured out would be some kind of exaggeration of myself that was more sarcastic and it actually played out quite well.

I actually discovered that I was good at stand up comedy by attempting to crack jokes while the presentation video wasn't working. At the end of the presentation people asked me if I was a stand up comic and I responded I am one now.

There are interesting correlations with the research on the sense of self, and how it relates to spiritual teachings which equate much of suffering with the sense of being a separate "self" entity (rather than seeing oneself as an indivisible part of a whole).

Maybe this trick helps reduce the activity of the DMN (default mode network) which is attributed to much of our worry based thinking, which is self centered?

https://jeffwarren.org/articles/neuroscienceofsuffering/

How do I refer to myself in the third person without feeling like Gollum?

Two ideas:

* Create duplicate account with different persona and make them talk. Fun on reddit.

* Start roleplaying and mostly dming. One of my favorite experience in life.

I feel like the former is a lot of the Internet in the late nineties. People pretending to be someone they’re not. Nobody knows you’re a dog in the Internet.

The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents.

Before the internet, people used to behave differently depending upon "which hat" they were wearing...

Instead of feeling like Gollum you could feel like "The Rock" (Dwayne Johnson).

This is why I think it's a huge shame we moved to using real names and no alt accounts online. No more space to experiment.

That's very true on Facebook, and it's true that Facebook is the dominant online destination so far as numbers go.

There are still regular old forums for a lot of hobbies and interests though, and even on here people can use handles. Reddit and Twitter as well.

I will confess to having multiple alt accounts on Facebook.

There is room to experiment still.

Teaching kids how to dissociate may not be completely good.

This isn't about dissociation. This is about using the tool of a constructed or adopted persona to engage differently with the situation at hand. Dissociation is about finding a way to disengage from the situation at hand. I have experience with both - the former after a fashion although I don't think of it that way, the latter in such extensive detail that it took me the better part of a couple of decades to learn how not to do it - and I can tell you, they're not even a little bit similar.

Also, again based on experience, I do not think that parents who teach their children to dissociate - or, more accurately put, make it necessary for their children to learn to do so - are particularly skillful at identifying what is and isn't good for those kids. They seem very often to be very sure that they are, but I wouldn't recommend taking their word for it.

> may not be completely good

it seems like a powerful tool, but the question is, should we limit teaching powerful things if they have the 'possibility' to be dangerous?

“Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had an unwanted alter ego once. A colleague called me by the wrong name for the entire time we worked together (a few months). I considered correcting him, but I wanted to see how it would play out.

if you didn't correct him, then it wasn't unwanted. so how did it play out?

It was initially unwanted, but it became interesting because it lasted so long. What made it possible was that we didn't work closely (different groups) and encountered each other only infrequently and usually one-on-one, so there weren't others around to correct him. When I left, there was a social event with mainly people from my group, so he was not present, and I don't actually know whether he ever learned of his error. Maybe my alter ego still lives in his memory.

This reminds me of masks, but unexpectedly used in real world rather than in acting and/or improv.

For more on masks, if someone’s interested, read Impro by Keith Johnstone and (tangentially) Emissary’s Guide to Worlding by Iain Cheng.

Also, British comedy improv trio Pappy’s comes to my mind—in some podcast episodes there is a time where Tom spontaneously drops into another persona; Matthew immediately switches to addressing that mask instead of Tom, until Tom snaps out of it. It would’ve sounded incredibly bizarre to me had I not read Impro prior.

Todd Herman wrote a book about how develop an alter ego. He used the technique through his professional career.

Through media interviews you can piece together that Kobe Bryant was one of his clients.

Are there any downsides to this technique?

E.g. will you become less authentic, and will you become a stranger to your friends, family and perhaps even yourself?

Will people think you have lost your mind?

I think social interaction is just us donning a series of different masks anyway, so the concept of authenticity seems to be point at something nebulous at best.

Am I less authentic when I’m on an antidepressant that helps me cope with life? Am I less authentic if I’m forcing myself to be polite to a coworker I don’t like? Am I more authentic when I’m alone and dancing to some song I like?

This reminds me of some content analysis research done on leaders. It basically splits the private life (journals, etc), public life (meetings, conversations) and the performative life (speeches, etc). I guess one could argue that the only time we approach authenticity is when speaking to ourselves...

I was watching the D-A-L anime the other day and thinking about this character

https://date-a-live.fandom.com/wiki/Natsumi_Kyouno

who has the power to become anything so decides to become what a kid would think is "flashy" and "cool" to cover up her own feelings of vulnerability.

Yup, it’s super helpful. An alternative abbreviation of my name is one I typically associate with shitty people (never met someone who went by that version of the name that I liked), so whenever I find myself wanting to engage in some form of negative behavior (even tame, like being a little lazy) I tell myself that that’s what [abbreviated name] does, not me. Works pretty well.

There was a joke about this in the show The Office, American version. I don’t remember the specifics, but Andy was auditioning for an a role and it required him to put his eyes in the emergency eye wash . He was deathly afraid of this, which was characteristic. So the advice given to him was to play a character auditioning for a role that wasn’t afraid of the eye wash.

Does anyone here do this? Seems like a powerful thing - I might try it. I'll need to come up with some good names.

This sounds a bit like "fixed role therapy" [1]

[1] http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/fixed-role-ther.html