this is a lovely way to say it: "I thank you for either your continued attention or for honouring your desire to focus it elsewhere." so thanks for that line ◡̈
and thanks for sharing these distinctions between sincerity, authenticity, and profilicity. so interesting.
i think that in the last 2-3 years i have released my death grip on my profilic identity, and have been exploring the others/seeing how to integrate. i found myself excited while reading this, because they feel quite integrated right now!! but i will continue to explore this.
To be honest, I don’t think about it a lot which is an advantage to creating online I think. I noticed it most when others project identities on to me that don’t feel resonant. Like when family notices that I am not doing something they expect like owning a house. If there’s anything, I have a habit centric identity. Like dude who does these things consistently. I’m always assuming I’ll keep changing too so authentic “true” me seems a bit too ambiguous for me.
I think it's a big advantage. I also think you're somewhat beyond this in part because your journey has been very much about stepping out of other people's expectations / going pathless. I wonder if your former default path version was actually more profilic
This question of identity feels stifling at times, and I notice how it prevents me from fully expressing my seemingly disconnected interests. Because when these interests are roughly glued together, I'm concerned that they would be "hard to understand."
Being early in the journey of sharing online, I'm trying to shed thoughts about how my profile presents itself to that "general audience." This piece gives solid language to some of the swirling thoughts in my head, thank you for writing it!
I found the distinction between sincerity, authenticity, and profilicity (and the concept of this) really helpful. It articulated something I’ve also been feeling for the past few years, as I built my social profiles around a certain identity when I was much younger, when I thought would stay the same forever. But I’ve since evolved from that and have felt trapped by the construct of my social profiles. At the same time, I’ve felt resistance to scrapping it all and starting over again or to introducing the ways in which I’d changed. Quite a stark illustration of the past having a hold on a person, freezing them so they cannot move forward, even in “real” life. It always felt like it was in my head so I’m grateful for your acknowledgment that these identities are real. Profiles are such a tangible expression of the narratives we tell of ourselves.
Just wanted to ask, are you feeling any apprehension around making changes to your profile and the identity that comes with it? And how do you anticipate that unblocking things in your offline life / identities?
I'm feeling a little apprehensive, but I think I've long since passed the point at which I should have changed this up. I've let a stale profilic identity hang around too long, so actually there's more excitement and relief than there is apprehension. There would have been more apprehension if I'd done it earlier, but it still would have been the right call.
Part of my own challenge has been the classic "a writer who doesn't write" pattern, or "the teacher who doesn't teach", etc. There was some element of "feeling like a hyocrite" that I couldn't be with, so I distracted myself from that in various ways and ended up losing a chunk of my life. I think a lot of that is now starting to release.
Definitely identify with feeling like a hypocrite, and am slowly learning that being afraid of not living up to a label is the very thing that blocks you from truly embodying what you actually want from that vision of your life
I've been grappling with something very similar lately. I'm not known as the Complice/Intend/intentionality/TO-DOs guy as much as you're known as the AT guy, but it's still somewhat there and it continues to be the answer to "how do I make my money?" even while it's not per se the answer to "what's my life's work?" But it's also not totally irrelevant to my life's work, which puts it in this weird limbo space: neither irrelevant enough to just be a cash project, nor central enough to feel like where I want to invest my public profile/identity. Confusing and stressful.
Related to [Sasha's recent post on it being okay to want to look good](https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/theres-nothing-wrong-with-doing-things), I've been finding it helpful to decouple my motivations. Oh, sometimes I want to build a new feature for philosophical integrity, okay that's why. Oh, maybe I want to run this promotion to make more money, okay that's why. Not confusing my desire to make more money with my desire to make a beautiful meaningful offering to the world. Ideally they synergize, but they're not identical. Huh, interesting to land on the word "identical" in the context of the title of your post!
this is a lovely way to say it: "I thank you for either your continued attention or for honouring your desire to focus it elsewhere." so thanks for that line ◡̈
and thanks for sharing these distinctions between sincerity, authenticity, and profilicity. so interesting.
i think that in the last 2-3 years i have released my death grip on my profilic identity, and have been exploring the others/seeing how to integrate. i found myself excited while reading this, because they feel quite integrated right now!! but i will continue to explore this.
I'm glad you liked that phrasing! I was wondering how to articulate it.
You do seem pretty integrated on this front! I think it's a journey that everyone has to navigate and it looks like you're enjoying yours!
aww thanks, michael, i really appreciate that ☺️🫶🏼
To be honest, I don’t think about it a lot which is an advantage to creating online I think. I noticed it most when others project identities on to me that don’t feel resonant. Like when family notices that I am not doing something they expect like owning a house. If there’s anything, I have a habit centric identity. Like dude who does these things consistently. I’m always assuming I’ll keep changing too so authentic “true” me seems a bit too ambiguous for me.
I think it's a big advantage. I also think you're somewhat beyond this in part because your journey has been very much about stepping out of other people's expectations / going pathless. I wonder if your former default path version was actually more profilic
Oh, of course have you seen my résumé lol
This question of identity feels stifling at times, and I notice how it prevents me from fully expressing my seemingly disconnected interests. Because when these interests are roughly glued together, I'm concerned that they would be "hard to understand."
Being early in the journey of sharing online, I'm trying to shed thoughts about how my profile presents itself to that "general audience." This piece gives solid language to some of the swirling thoughts in my head, thank you for writing it!
My pleasure! In the early stages I think it's easier to just write about what brings you to life and let the people who get you find you in time.
Definitely feel like just letting it rip is the game! Glad to be a reader here, looking forward to next week
Thanks so much for sharing this!
I found the distinction between sincerity, authenticity, and profilicity (and the concept of this) really helpful. It articulated something I’ve also been feeling for the past few years, as I built my social profiles around a certain identity when I was much younger, when I thought would stay the same forever. But I’ve since evolved from that and have felt trapped by the construct of my social profiles. At the same time, I’ve felt resistance to scrapping it all and starting over again or to introducing the ways in which I’d changed. Quite a stark illustration of the past having a hold on a person, freezing them so they cannot move forward, even in “real” life. It always felt like it was in my head so I’m grateful for your acknowledgment that these identities are real. Profiles are such a tangible expression of the narratives we tell of ourselves.
Just wanted to ask, are you feeling any apprehension around making changes to your profile and the identity that comes with it? And how do you anticipate that unblocking things in your offline life / identities?
I'm feeling a little apprehensive, but I think I've long since passed the point at which I should have changed this up. I've let a stale profilic identity hang around too long, so actually there's more excitement and relief than there is apprehension. There would have been more apprehension if I'd done it earlier, but it still would have been the right call.
Part of my own challenge has been the classic "a writer who doesn't write" pattern, or "the teacher who doesn't teach", etc. There was some element of "feeling like a hyocrite" that I couldn't be with, so I distracted myself from that in various ways and ended up losing a chunk of my life. I think a lot of that is now starting to release.
Definitely identify with feeling like a hypocrite, and am slowly learning that being afraid of not living up to a label is the very thing that blocks you from truly embodying what you actually want from that vision of your life
I've been grappling with something very similar lately. I'm not known as the Complice/Intend/intentionality/TO-DOs guy as much as you're known as the AT guy, but it's still somewhat there and it continues to be the answer to "how do I make my money?" even while it's not per se the answer to "what's my life's work?" But it's also not totally irrelevant to my life's work, which puts it in this weird limbo space: neither irrelevant enough to just be a cash project, nor central enough to feel like where I want to invest my public profile/identity. Confusing and stressful.
Related to [Sasha's recent post on it being okay to want to look good](https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/theres-nothing-wrong-with-doing-things), I've been finding it helpful to decouple my motivations. Oh, sometimes I want to build a new feature for philosophical integrity, okay that's why. Oh, maybe I want to run this promotion to make more money, okay that's why. Not confusing my desire to make more money with my desire to make a beautiful meaningful offering to the world. Ideally they synergize, but they're not identical. Huh, interesting to land on the word "identical" in the context of the title of your post!