71–80 of 215 posts
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).
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 o…
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.
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 sa…
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.
you mean like 4chan?
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.
Edit: And of course you already had two suggestions for this. I should refresh the page before commenting.
Merely the fact that an "alter ego" is needed points to the fact that the person experiences fear and anxiety towards something.
If he needs an alter ego to overcome that it is supression/dissociation. This will ensure that this person will never be free of it.
This only looks good on the surface, but in reality this will emprison the person for life.
Those who wish to come to the root of the issue will find many answers here:
Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child
Alice Miller: The Body Never Lies
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
See also: David Bowie.
David Bowie needed this persona to perform, he was otherwise an introvert and shy.
“As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs onstage and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going onstage and being myself. I continued designing characters with their own complete personalities and environments. I put them into interviews with me! Rather than be me — which must be incredibly boring to anyone — I’d take Ziggy in, or Aladdin Sane or The Thin White Duke. It was a very strange thing to do.”