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Can you explain more about keeping your public identity small but your private identity large? Does that just mean not trying to do your own personal branding

by wsinks 6y ago

Can you explain more about keeping your public identity small but your private identity large? Does that just mean not trying to do your own personal branding so people can find you on the internet? Or is it more about "everyone that I care about, aka local people, should know about me - that's my private identity". I'm curious, as an American born and someone who's continually trying to learn about other cultures.

christiansakai 6y ago
If this is about personal branding related to your business, yes you can keep your public identity large, but strictly only about that. Let's say you are a musician, then yeah just promote yourself as a musician, music you write, instruments that you play, but stop there. Don't tell people anything about your private life, your politics, your religion, etc. Not to say that people shouldn't do that per se, but this comment is more about how to keep your sanity and your inner peace. For everyone that you care about and if your care is reciprocated, I think no matter how small you try to keep your identity, they'll just still be enamored by it. I myself try to generally keep my identity small, both in public/digital space and within my friends, but yeah my friend can't help but still know who I really am, what food that I like, what music that I like, just as I can't help but to know who they really are. It is the result of close proximity in relationship. But this results in more organic and more understanding. My friends don't judge me purely black and white, and I don't judge them purely black and white either.
- eropple 6y ago
  This reads as "erase the parts of yourself that might make the mainstream uncomfortable." What you're writing seems very much to distill down to not discomfiting a default-white, default-male, default-affluent worldview, because it might make you feel bad when people get mad at you for existing. Care to refine your position?
  - danlugo92 6y ago
    He just means be a private person jeez. Don't tweet about your hemorroids.
  - ShrCul 6y ago
    I don't see how you concluded that. I don't see why you would bring white males into this, though it seems like a sensitive topic for you. > Make people mad at you for existing. You brought this up, not the commenter. Commenter: > Don't tell people anything about your private life, your politics, your religion, etc Does not say to keep a specific belief private, but in general practice. This helps avoid conflict with people who disagree, as well as deter people looking for a point to drag you down for. And the above quote is when it comes to personal branding in a business - I believe I don't need to elaborate on why you shouldn't talk politics with a client, as well as keep your personal life separate from business. The latter half of the comment reveals that that they simply prefer to keep their personal details to themself. To do so digitally makes sense, considering how often it is for people's data to be sold. In-person, the commenter does not practice this extremely because their friends inevitably get to know them better, and the commenter gets to know said friends. If anything, why don't you elaborate on your interpretation?
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    I was born in Asia and grew up there, so sorry I am not fully qualified to answer this, nor do I understand. I did grew up as a racial minority and experienced racial and religious persecution. I can comment on those, but regarding default-white, default-male, default-affluent, I have no comments. Maybe my fellow countrymen/women can vouch. So, go back to the original topic. The topic is about you wanting to keep your mental health/wealth, sanity, inner peace. In this case, you want to avoid trouble as much as possible. People will bother you for everything, anything. You want to minimize this. In Asia, we prefer to keep the harmony, so to speak. Not saying it is perfect, no system or worldview in this world is perfect. Trade-offs everywhere. When you want to keep the harmony, then individual and group rights already take the second place compared to the majority. In case you want to challenge the default status quo, the mainstream, then you can no longer keep your mental health healthy. It is already a warfare in your mind. It is a trade off. No war can be won without price. By going against the default status quo, you already signed yourself up to the battlefield, starting from your mind, and then, your body. For people who are oppressed, they never had peace from the start anywhere anytime, so asking this question for them is already a privilege, because they are already at war. But the topic here is not about that, but about keeping your mental health/wealth. Mental health and wealth is like peace, it is a luxury. Those who have the chance to read the article above and relate to it, are living in luxury already. Peace after all, is the privilege of the victors.
    - ifokiedoke 6y ago
      Just want to say that I really appreciated this thoughtful response about tradeoffs. I had a common knee-jerk reaction to your initial post: "Well how convenient, someone who's not in an oppressed group is advising keeping out of politics, which is essentially encouraging the status quo". It is indeed true, that when you choose to fight the status quo (which there are many valid reasons to do), it makes it much more difficult to keep constant mental peace.
      - christiansakai 6y ago
        No problem. I appreciate the response.
velp 6y ago
Not OP, but his post reminded me of a Paul Graham article [0] about keeping your identity small. [0]http://paulgraham.com/identity.html http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
- christiansakai 6y ago
  In this age of social media I think this can't be stressed enough.
- enoreyes 6y ago
  This is an interesting idea, but I wonder to what extent this view is only possible for people who aren't explicitly persecuted for their identity. How can you keep your "identity" small if it's written on your skin or on your marriage documents? Should these people simply disassociate from their identities? I think as a general principle it's probably good to minimize your public-facing identity, however, the reductionism and broad generalization make this argument much weaker and misses the point about why people get so upset about identity.
mightybyte 6y ago
When I read that, I immediately thought of this article from earlier this year by Tim Ferriss. https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/ https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/ Having a large and visible private identity has a cost, and I think that post does a great job at illustrating it.

by wsinks 6y ago

christiansakai 6y ago

If this is about personal branding related to your business, yes you can keep your public identity large, but strictly only about that. Let's say you are a musician, then yeah just promote yourself as a musician, music you write, instruments that you play, but stop there. Don't tell people anything about your private life, your politics, your religion, etc. Not to say that people shouldn't do that per se, but this comment is more about how to keep your sanity and your inner peace. For everyone that you care about and if your care is reciprocated, I think no matter how small you try to keep your identity, they'll just still be enamored by it. I myself try to generally keep my identity small, both in public/digital space and within my friends, but yeah my friend can't help but still know who I really am, what food that I like, what music that I like, just as I can't help but to know who they really are. It is the result of close proximity in relationship. But this results in more organic and more understanding. My friends don't judge me purely black and white, and I don't judge them purely black and white either.

eropple 6y ago
This reads as "erase the parts of yourself that might make the mainstream uncomfortable." What you're writing seems very much to distill down to not discomfiting a default-white, default-male, default-affluent worldview, because it might make you feel bad when people get mad at you for existing. Care to refine your position?
- danlugo92 6y ago
  He just means be a private person jeez. Don't tweet about your hemorroids.
- ShrCul 6y ago
  I don't see how you concluded that. I don't see why you would bring white males into this, though it seems like a sensitive topic for you. > Make people mad at you for existing. You brought this up, not the commenter. Commenter: > Don't tell people anything about your private life, your politics, your religion, etc Does not say to keep a specific belief private, but in general practice. This helps avoid conflict with people who disagree, as well as deter people looking for a point to drag you down for. And the above quote is when it comes to personal branding in a business - I believe I don't need to elaborate on why you shouldn't talk politics with a client, as well as keep your personal life separate from business. The latter half of the comment reveals that that they simply prefer to keep their personal details to themself. To do so digitally makes sense, considering how often it is for people's data to be sold. In-person, the commenter does not practice this extremely because their friends inevitably get to know them better, and the commenter gets to know said friends. If anything, why don't you elaborate on your interpretation?
- christiansakai 6y ago
  I was born in Asia and grew up there, so sorry I am not fully qualified to answer this, nor do I understand. I did grew up as a racial minority and experienced racial and religious persecution. I can comment on those, but regarding default-white, default-male, default-affluent, I have no comments. Maybe my fellow countrymen/women can vouch. So, go back to the original topic. The topic is about you wanting to keep your mental health/wealth, sanity, inner peace. In this case, you want to avoid trouble as much as possible. People will bother you for everything, anything. You want to minimize this. In Asia, we prefer to keep the harmony, so to speak. Not saying it is perfect, no system or worldview in this world is perfect. Trade-offs everywhere. When you want to keep the harmony, then individual and group rights already take the second place compared to the majority. In case you want to challenge the default status quo, the mainstream, then you can no longer keep your mental health healthy. It is already a warfare in your mind. It is a trade off. No war can be won without price. By going against the default status quo, you already signed yourself up to the battlefield, starting from your mind, and then, your body. For people who are oppressed, they never had peace from the start anywhere anytime, so asking this question for them is already a privilege, because they are already at war. But the topic here is not about that, but about keeping your mental health/wealth. Mental health and wealth is like peace, it is a luxury. Those who have the chance to read the article above and relate to it, are living in luxury already. Peace after all, is the privilege of the victors.
  - ifokiedoke 6y ago
    Just want to say that I really appreciated this thoughtful response about tradeoffs. I had a common knee-jerk reaction to your initial post: "Well how convenient, someone who's not in an oppressed group is advising keeping out of politics, which is essentially encouraging the status quo". It is indeed true, that when you choose to fight the status quo (which there are many valid reasons to do), it makes it much more difficult to keep constant mental peace.
    - christiansakai 6y ago
      No problem. I appreciate the response.

velp 6y ago

Not OP, but his post reminded me of a Paul Graham article [0] about keeping your identity small. [0]http://paulgraham.com/identity.html http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

christiansakai 6y ago
In this age of social media I think this can't be stressed enough.
enoreyes 6y ago
This is an interesting idea, but I wonder to what extent this view is only possible for people who aren't explicitly persecuted for their identity. How can you keep your "identity" small if it's written on your skin or on your marriage documents? Should these people simply disassociate from their identities? I think as a general principle it's probably good to minimize your public-facing identity, however, the reductionism and broad generalization make this argument much weaker and misses the point about why people get so upset about identity.

mightybyte 6y ago

When I read that, I immediately thought of this article from earlier this year by Tim Ferriss. https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/ https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/ Having a large and visible private identity has a cost, and I think that post does a great job at illustrating it.