> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Maybe you don't exist - URL: https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/maybe-you-dont-exist/ - Published: 2026-10-06T17:45:03.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-06T17:45:03.000Z - Description: Who are you... really? - Author: Alicia McKay - Tags: #wednesday-wisdom, Identity I, like you, have many selves. To my children: an out-of-touch old Mum, freaking out about manners and tooth brushing, opening a window to clear condensation. To my clients: a cut-through strategist who organises ideas and actions toward a goal. To Wednesday Wisdom readers: a prompter and explainer. To [Friday Flurry](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/friday-flurry/) readers: an angsty wonderer. To my friends: a chaotic but loyal fizzer. To myself: a hypocritical striver. I visited family this week and found myself performing lines from an old script, a character I hadn't played for a while - glib, assured, impervious to old hurts or family dramas. I woke this morning wondering if I might still be her. I was not. > *Do I contradict myself?* > *Very well then I contradict myself,* > *(I am large, I contain multitudes.)* > *\- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself* We do this, don't we? We change our minds and feelings, contradict ourselves, and tumble into alternate selves by choice and chance. We're funny in some moments, and serious in others. Forces of certainty and will in some settings, soft parcels of doubt in others. But who is the *real* you? And are you showing up, 2020s style, in a way that's true to that person? If you're not sure, there is a whole genre of literature eager to help you find your purpose, craft your vision, and live in accordance with your highest, most actualised identity. --- All of which assumes you *have* a self. And assume, we do. Our social and political systems are structured according to what contemporary philosopher Daniel Kolak calls 'closed individualism' - a coherent, separate consciousness, with traits, morals, and beliefs that remain largely consistent over time. We present a personal brand tailored to our unique authenticity. We vote in elections according to our moral compass and [independent opinions](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/opinions-are-like-assholes/). We choose careers, partners, and hobbies on a quest toward our truest self-expression. Kolak thinks this is utter rot. There is no closed 'self' to be expressed, he insists. (But he also believes we are all one being throughout space and time, so do what you want with that.) --- A consistent self is a rational proposition for a firm marketing products and services. Brands are manufactured, cohesive narratives, in service of what a consumer or market wants and needs. [Professional personas ](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/the-problem-with-professionalism-rejecting-sameness-at-work/)are the same, and [personal brands](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/being-a-thought-leader-rotted-my-brain/) a fast track to self-commodification. This creates tension when your personal life collides with the sleek façade. How does your scheduled content hold up against your mid-life crisis, marriage breakdown, parenting failure or mental health moment? Containing multitudes becomes a problem when we expect a single self. --- Performance of self is a social necessity and a modern imperative - which is all well and good, until we enter what Jean-Paul Sartre would call 'bad faith' *(mauvaise foi)* and let our occupation, social persona, or defence mechanisms leak into our self-conception - and create the illusion of constraints. Sartre warns against internalising our performances. When we lock ourselves into roles - the mother, the lawyer, the giver, the social butterfly - we are fooled into believing we don't have a choice about how to behave. Equal parts comforting and frustrating, this pretence saves us from the consequences of being whoever we want. It is easier to be a passive victim of our circumstances than confront the anxiety of our freedom. --- I watched the Jared Leto film *Mr Nobody* over the weekend - what a trip. In the film, our protagonist lives multiple versions of his life, after splitting from an impossible choice between his divorcing parents as a small boy. As a viewer, you're left confused about who he really was. We have an ongoing cultural fascination with the allure of the life not lived - films like *Sliding Doors* or *Everything Everywhere All at Once* and books like *The Midnight Library* allow us to wonder: who might we have been, if we'd taken a different path? Implicit in the format: our choices and contexts change us. There is no fate. --- My therapist works in Internal Family Systems, a methodology that assumes every person is made up of 'parts' which play different roles in our lives and personalities. Some parts remain young, trapped in childhood experiences and emotional immaturity. These are our smallest, most tender selves, aching for love, safety, and security. Others are'managers' - defences we've built over time to save those young parts from further anguish. Still others are 'firefighters', pulling out all the stops in a disaster - causing us to flee, rage, or shut down. This coalition of personalities wages war inside us, often unseen. The work: to integrate them peacefully, honour their service, and update them as needed. The goal: to move through the world with awareness, consciousness, and flexibility. IFS assumes there is a core Self underneath all of this, yet the process, however useful, feels alarmingly unfinishable. --- At the [Festival of Dangerous Ideas](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/are-we-being-a-bit-dramatic/), moral philosopher Hanno Sauer told the crowd we don't have beliefs so much as identities. We consider ourselves rational beings, voting and choosing in alignment with our convictions, but most of us simply conform to social rules that safeguard our belonging. David Hume would go further. Forget beliefs; there's no stable identity either, only a bundle of fleeting, transient perceptions, formed in response to a moment. How you vote, what you care about, and who you think you are will change minute to minute, context to context, day to day, sometimes never to be seen again. Logic be damned. --- One of my most popular articles, [cross-posted to LinkedIn](https://lnkd.in/p/eetWf7z8?ref=aliciamckay.co.nz), is a four-year-old rant about ['professionalism](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/the-problem-with-professionalism-rejecting-sameness-at-work/)' and how limiting, classist, and self-suppressing work norms can be. People who enjoy this article tend to be self-doubting 'straddlers' who've moved classes, countries, or social contexts and struggled to play the professional game. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/ea/f6eacf9c-bf08-4a3e-b200-2a209bebe3ad/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-06-at-10.45.52---PM.png)](https://lnkd.in/p/eetWf7z8?ref=aliciamckay.co.nz) The article, which quotes Alfred Lubrano's 'straddler' theory, pokes at and soothes imposter wounds - we don't fit, because the system is designed for a different kind of person. Which is all true, but assumes, of course, that *you* are a particular kind of person. --- We are more permeable and porous than we give ourselves credit for. Every time we feel the pain of a loved one, shift our mood to help a friend, or adopt the social mores of our profession or in-group, we plug into a self that's bigger than us. But whether our capacity for shared meaning and empathy is proof of intersubjectivity - the ability to co-create feelings and ideas with others - or merely a projection of our own mental models is unclear. All this panicking about where we end and others begin - the [boundaries](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/boundaries/) we need to erect, the [Future Self ](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/you-dont-know-how-great-you-can-be-expand-your-possibilities/)we're moving toward, and the [values](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/values/) we need to clarify - might be all for naught if we don't exist separately in the first place. --- Artificial Intelligence, we're told, is one step away from developing *consciousness.* The tech bros warn of impending doom in their press releases, alternating between mock sobriety and barely suppressed glee. The robots are almost human - and they're going to rule the world and blow us all up! Watch out. Which would be alarming if we had any idea what consciousness *is*. I'm currently reading Michael Pollan's *A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness*. I'm only a few chapters in and so far the only thing that seems certain is we can't, for all our psychological, philosophical, and scientific efforts, explain where our inner life comes from - or if it's there at all. > Historically, brain metaphors have often drawn on the impressive machines of the day. For example, brains were once analogized to clocks and mills when those were cutting-edge technologies. > \- Michael Pollan Today's impressive machine is the computer, so naturally, the computer must be a brain. How convenient that five rich dudes who had no mates in high school have cracked one of humanity's biggest questions just in time for another round of investor funding. Good luck to them, I reckon. It's taken us thousands of years to get this far, and I'm still working out what I want to have for breakfast, much less who I am or if 'I' exist. Intellectual Hype Girl will finish this essay. Daft Old Mum will take the kids out for the day (unless they need Calm Soothing Hugger to break up an argument, or Fun Energy Booster to lift the vibe). Curious Thinker will read a book, and Neurotic Girlfriend, Confident Professional, and Snarky Political Commentator might take turns responding to a few texts. Tomorrow, who knows? What I *can* tell you is Philosophy Girl's run out of juice, so Dreamy Poet will close this one. > *I celebrate myself, and sing myself,* > *And what I assume you shall assume,* > *For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.* > *\- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself* Til next week, A