Being Yourself

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Nick Hare, Jordan Fermanis and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. And this week we're discussing being yourself. Nick, go for it. Well, you know, films, they often, if there's a message, it's often about being true to yourself, isn't it? It's often about, you know, follow your own dreams. Don't let society tell you how to behave or what to do. And that it's important to sort of say what you think and live according to what you genuinely want and not, you know, what, you know, your neighbours tell you or your boss tells you to do. I think it's a very common theme. And I'd say it goes back into the distant past. You know, if you look at things like The Emperor's New Clothes, really about, you know, not going along with what everyone else says and sort of trying to, trying to aim at believing the truth rather than what society says is true. And but so on one hand, everyone's exhorting you all the time to be yourself. But what does that mean? Because you might well be socially determined. Your behaviour and your beliefs might well be, might be authentically you to go along with the crowd. Like in Monty Python, where they say, we're all individuals, you know, that might be you. So what does it mean to be yourself? Is it something you can actually aim for? And, and yet, should we do it? Also, what about if you're horrible? You know? Yeah, if you're truly horrible, right? Is it better to pretend to be nice or to authentically horrible? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So someone pick it up. Who wants to run with this? I mean, there's the question being posed. Go for it, Chris. Well, I was just gonna say, you know,

Speaker B: 00:02:01

speak your truth. Well, I only if you if you want me to, you know, obviously, and it fits in with the group. No. Okay. So Jordan, you come in. Go for it, Chris. Well, no, I was just gonna say, like, why is this? Why is this an issue? Right? Whether you are yourself or you you go along with the group, and I think there's something it's worth sort of taking a step back and looking at us and the way we interact with one another as to as to, you know, why why this is an issue. And if you look at humans, you know, if you if you think about the spectrum of sort of independence and isolationism through to complete integrated society, you've got species like ants, right, where, you know, you you you have complete, you know, in some ant colonies, there's completely, they call them super organisms, you know, that they act as a as a whole, without independent goals, I suppose. And, you know, there's one reproductive female. And so, you know, things like self sacrifice in defence of the colony, you know, is not a choice. It's a it's a sort of,

Speaker A: 00:03:17

you know, there's no different to losing a bit of fingernail when you're defending yourself. Exactly. That's right. So, you know, there's some ants who are just doors. They've evolved to have these big heads that and their only job is to is to block the door. It's a bit like the honey,

Speaker B: 00:03:33

I think it's the honeydew ants, where they they basically force feed them with nectar all day. And they just swell up. They're just a repository for they're just a bag. Yeah, they're just a bag. Exactly. But then on the on the other end of the spectrum, you've got you've got like Bengal tigers, right, which only they basically the only reason they meet up is to court and and mate effectively and occasionally have a bit of a scrap, but they might live, they might, you know, one tiger might cover a 200 square mile territory, right. So you've got this this spectrum from the entirely the entirely selfless societal sort of hive mind through to, you know, complete individuals and humanity and its evolutionary strategy sort of plonks in the middle. Right. So you've got you know, we are social animals, but we're also independent. And so we've got this we found this niche as a society, but but we've got to find our own niche as an individual as to which part of that spectrum we sit on. So therefore, we have this dilemma of should I act in my own interests and and follow my own path? Or should I amend what I do, you know, adapt it to what everybody else wants to do and fit in with them. So I think that's just a sort of positioning as to why this is something we need to think about.

Speaker A: 00:05:03

Okay, I think you've hit upon it there. Because as soon as we talked about tigers and ants, the first thing that was strikes strikes you is that well, and as you've kind of alluded to, tigers are on their own. They know they want to be individuals fine, they stay away from everyone. Ants want to be together. Brilliant. There's millions of them all together. And we're horribly in the middle sort of caught, you know, what way do we go? And also it's, you might know this better than me, but I think we're evolved to sort of live in a tribe of about 100 people, right? That's what we're good at. People rarely have a Dunbar number. Is that what it is? Yeah. And that's so that maybe that's part of the problem that you know, we're okay if we were in 100, because we can be social enough. But if it's, you know, less or more than that, it can go wrong. Let's bring

Speaker C: 00:05:49

in Jordan. Yeah, I think it's sort of about how we interpret authenticity. Because I think so, if people are, how we interpret in inauthenticity and authenticity, because if people are striving to be authentic, but then they experience some negative emotion, and then that they perceive that as inauthenticity, that so if they're trying to be authentic, but then the social pressure to be genuine and honest, leads to inauthenticity, there might be a sort of disparity between their own personality and the social pressures that kind of the people that we put upon people. So I think there's a kind of, there has to be a balance between yourself, your personal characteristics, traits, how you present to the world, and then the social pressures that we place upon people to be authentic, and how we hold that into in high regard. I think that's what's

Speaker A: 00:06:46

tricky for humans is that balance, right? So, yeah, and the other thing is, as there's this great Argentinian writer and thinker, I don't know if you've heard of him, he's called Borges, okay, and he had this essay that he wrote about the Aleph, okay, it's great, I'll introduce you to him sometime. And it's, this feels like that in the actually all comes, often what we talk about is aims, right? And if you are a tiger, your aim is fairly easy to define, or certainly, because it's just your aim. Whereas if you're an ant, it's also easy, because it's the aim of the colony, right? Whereas, like we were saying at the beginning, if you're human, you're stuck somewhere in the middle, how do you balance that? Nick? Well, first of all, I'm just putting this out there, but it, I mean, there must be a spectrum. Obviously, if Chris said we're in the middle, I think everyone thinks they're in the middle. I suspect ants think they're in the middle, and look down on even more conformist ant colonists, who knows? But I wonder if, you know, there might be tigers out there who quite fancy just a cuddle, or a chat with another tiger or something, and just never get the chance. You need to try it out, go find a tiger, give it a cuddle. Yeah, or whether there are ants out there who kind of think, well, you know, I'd quite like to be the queen ant for a day, and I don't like it being this worker ant, it's really boring. In as much as that would mean anything. But I'm just, I'm just saying it, obviously, everyone thinks they're in the middle. It may be just as hard for other animals, we don't know. Anyway, I thought I'd have a look at how psychology handles this concept of, you know, authenticity versus sort of social pressure and so on. One of the things that it's really hard to measure, because to some extent, it involves understanding what's going on inside someone's head. And you can't get that out, unless you assume that their behaviour reflects what's going on inside their head in some context, because that isn't necessarily the case. Obviously, people during a study may be saying things that they want the experimenter to hear, or they, you know, well, it's certainly a kind of artificial situation to be in. So it's very hard to measure. But one of the things they've looked at is what's called intra individual variability. How much does your personality change sort of over time, in different contexts, looking at things like, look, you know, things like what kind of, you might be an extrovert at work, but an introvert at home, or vice versa. And versus, you know, people who, for whom their personality never changes, and they're the same all the time. And the inclination is to say, well, okay, maybe that first person, the flexible person, maybe they're just authentically flexible, in the same way that, you know, if you're walking on a cliff, you've got to be a bit more careful than if you're just walking down the road. Now, which one is your authentic walking style? Well, both, right? It's correct to be careful on a cliff and less careful on the road. So, you know, the concept doesn't make sense. But if you are varying your walking style, someone who walked the same in both contexts, you could at least say that's probably authentically them in some sense. Like, if they're always the same, then that same thing is there. So that's one thing you can look at is variability. And there isn't a great deal of research into it. I was hoping to find, okay, well, people with more variable personalities tend to be of this kind. But they have found that, or at least there is a suggestion that if you have a diverse personality, a set of personality manifestations, that's correlated with what's called perspective taking, i.e. the ability to understand what other people are thinking. And the hypothesis is that this is because you're, well, for two reasons. Firstly, that you have less egocentric bias, which means that you're able to understand that your own views of things are only your own view, and not like necessarily the truth and other people are weirdos. Right? So first of all, it's about understanding that your perspective isn't the only one. And secondly, that it's about your ability to construct other people's perspectives. And so one of the things they found was that people who had openness to experience were better at doing that. And the thought is that the more things you've done, the more able you are to go, oh, okay, well, these people probably see it from this perspective. Like if you worked in a shop, you're probably more easily able to understand what it's like for a shopkeeper to have to deal with an annoying customer. And you're likely to change your behavior and the way that you approach them as a result. And so the idea is that, yeah, so if you're therefore nicer to shopkeepers, as a result of having worked in a shop yourself, is that inauthentic or not? Well, let's not worry about that for now. But the point is that it doesn't necessarily mean it could just mean that you're able to see things from their perspective better. So anyway, you see people who are varying the way they behave in lots of different contexts. That's correlated with what we would probably think of as positive personality features. So that's interesting to me, because you know, the kind of basic model, the naive model of authenticity is you're the same in all contexts. But actually, I think the suggestion from this study is that actually varying the way you behave in different contexts is a positive attribute and correlated with some things that we think are good. And then having said that, and again, to go back to this concept of authenticity, I've seen one study where they've tried to sort of define it in terms of congruence between your outer behavior and your inner feelings, which, you know, subjectively makes sense, hard to measure, you can only ask people, you know, how do you feel like you're putting on an act. But I certainly feel like that's a thing and that it's hard, it's hard to consistently behave according to ways you don't want to behave, because there's, you know, makes you depressed, right. And that's what they found is that, you know, authenticity, when you have lots of congruating fluctuations in your sort of congruence, it's negatively linked to emotional well-being. So anyway, summary would be that, first of all, well, two slightly contradictory findings, which is, you know, the more your personality varies day to day, well, sometimes that's a sign of some positive personality attributes. But on the other hand, if you're constantly doing and behaving in ways that don't feel like they reflect your inner behavior, it's bad for you. So how do we, you know, what does it mean? What does all that mean? Okay, nice. I'll bring in one of you two in a second. Just before I do, it strikes me as though I presented it as a problem or a dilemma that, you know, let's just say for a moment humans are in the middle, it's up for debate, but let's say we're in the middle, but maybe we're equipped for that, right? That sort of, a tiger wouldn't be able to make these kind of, nor would an ant sort of work out how to sort of vary, for example. Who wants to come in first, Chris, or let's go for Jordan.

Speaker C: 00:13:44

I think also there's a, I was looking at the sort of philosophy behind this as well, and I came across Aristotle's golden mean, which is a balance between two extremes, excess and deficiency. And I think that's also an interesting way to think about being yourself because it's good to, I guess, encourage people to be themselves, but we probably don't want people to reveal too much of themselves all the time because we could just, society probably wouldn't function well if people were just acting out their every whim all the time. So I think that that's why I think this idea of coming back to that idea of balance is a good one. And it seems to be sort of something that goes back into the sort of birth of philosophy really, because it's sort of, it's about the kind of functioning of society and how we can all kind of coexist in a way that is harmonious and not sort of detrimental to the greater kind of good. Also to the individuals by having to do things they don't want to.

Speaker B: 00:14:45

Yeah, it is at the heart of philosophy. I think the, I think, I mean, I'll sort of retouch perhaps on the philosophy later on, but something I was going to, that I started thinking about as Nick was talking about individual predispositions towards, towards flexibility, you know, so are some people more likely to seek to fit in or some people more likely to just be consistent, this idea of variability. And then, but the other thing, I think, as well as your inherent sense is situational. And a few things we talked about previously that made me think of this. One is that it's been well studied that as you become more powerful, you become less empathetic, right? So as you climb a hierarchy, you become less good at empathising with your fellow individuals and perhaps ameliorating your behaviour in response to them, right? Now, why is that? Well, I posit that one reason that is, is because you can, right? So not only do you have a predisposition to want to be yourself, but the power hierarchy sometimes dictates that you better do what other people are telling you, because you don't have the position, the status to be yourself. But, you know, it's easier for the likes of, you know, Lord Byron or Elton John to be individuals and, you know, not change their behaviour in response to others, because they are in, you know, positions where they're able to do that. But if you're the, you know, the scullery maid or the, you know, the butler or something, then you have to be more of a social chameleon. So.

Speaker A: 00:16:34

I bet even Lord Byron wouldn't have been too keen on his, on his kitchen staff. No. Deciding that today, they were just going to be myself.

Speaker B: 00:16:43

Yeah, exactly. But the other thing that, so there's that, there's your position within society that I think obviously gives you the ability to, to act out, you know, your own desires or not. But then I think the other thing is sort of situationally, you talked about different cultural approaches to, to, you know, sort of to acting collectively or acting individually or, and I think sometimes the circumstances of particular societies, you know, if they are at conflict, for example, you know, everybody harks back to the idea of what wasn't Britain better during the Blitz and so on. Well, there wasn't much choice. It was like you kind of get in line and do what we all need to do or we all suffer. But other times, you know, like the roaring 20s, maybe there was more individualism where, you know, money was perhaps slightly in easier supply and there wasn't an immediate threat of Germans turning up on your doorstep.

Speaker A: 00:17:51

It feels like we might have reduced this though too far to, it feels like we're talking about individualism versus collectivism. I don't know. And I wonder if we've simplified it too much. I've got a couple of, a few thoughts about how we might think of authenticity without it being about a subjective feeling. Because I think there is, there are certain things which can be genuinely true or false, right? And you touched on some earlier, which is sort of shouting about how much you love insurance, for example, when you don't for some unimaginable reason, which are things that you say, right? Beliefs you have. If you're saying things which aren't the beliefs you hold, then that is objectively you're saying things that are false. We can say that objective or at least from your point of view, which are false. So we can objectively say that you are being inauthentic. Likewise with feelings. If you pretend to be really happy about something and you're not or vice versa, then, you know, that's inauthentic. I mean, actually, objectively, I know it involves a subjective feeling, but it's objectively the case that the things you're saying do not reflect some inner truth. I don't think it's quite as clear cut with the concept of action, like behaving in a certain way or things that don't really have a sort of truth or falsity content, like the way you behave to someone in a shop, whether that can be said to be authentic in quite the same way, because it's not, you know, it's not something that could be true or false. So I think when we're talking about things people are saying, I think we can say... I didn't really understand, so I didn't understand the distinction between action and saying. Can you run it by me again? I know speech is a kind of action, but things you say have a truth value. They're either true or false. So what I'm saying is if you're telling untruths about your inner self, even if you're doing it to be polite or to fit in or something, then that is inauthentic, right? Whereas your actions, just, you know, the things you do, I don't think can be inauthentic in the same way, right? I'm just saying that's a criterion you can apply to things people say. I still don't get this. Do you guys get it? Well, I think that's a statement. I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying I don't understand. Me picking up a cup can't be true or false. Don't shout at me. I'm just trying Me picking up a cup is not true or false. It's just a thing that happens. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Speaker B: 00:20:10

You listening to music that you don't like or wearing clothes, you know, like the sort of fakeness that people portray in there, I would equate that to sort of saying, oh yes, I believe in God when you don't believe in God. Right. Or like going to church is an action, right? You might not believe in God, but you might go to church.

Speaker A: 00:20:31

But it could be that there are some actions that fall into what you're saying. But I think that's really helpful, actually, because that's clarified something I wasn't sure of. But I think I would sort of see that as almost like actions which bear an implicit statement about you. They make a statement about your inner self, say. And so to that extent, I think that's perhaps where inauthenticity of behavior comes from, is if your behavior implicitly says something about you which is not true. And also the fact that you said that it says, well, that ties it right in with what the original thing like, you know, when we speak. So I just want to say something else, which is which is it's a really important distinction, which is adapting versus fitting in. Right. They're not the same. I remember I know that there's this sort of landmark study in linguistics. I think it was probably about 50 years ago or something, but where they looked at the behavior that shop assistants had with different customers and found that the shop assistant spoke with a posher accent if their customers were working class and they spoke with a more working class accent when their customers were upper class. The idea being that they're sort of adapting to a certain social role when you're upper class, you probably expect and want a working class shop assistant. But if you're working class and this shop might be, as far as you're concerned, actually quite posh, perhaps you want the shop assistant to be posh. But anyway, the point is that they're adapting, but they're not. They're actually doing the opposite of fitting in. What they're doing is is is sort of taking on a social role, which which is like more suitable. They're not for the context. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think

Speaker C: 00:22:12

another aspect of being yourself is also self-awareness and building self-awareness, I guess. And I was looking at Mark Manson's interpretation of this. He describes self-awareness as metacognition and breaks it down into three levels. The first one is what you're doing. So your actions, choosing the right kind of actions, building a sense of awareness, eliminating the compulsion to, I guess, do inauthentic things. The second being how you're feeling. So a sense of emotional honesty, I guess, and that being part of building your self-awareness. And the third thing is your blind spots. So your biases and kind of acknowledging those as well. And he sort of argues that if you can align those three things, you can build self-awareness. And I guess that could then portray a more authentic sense of yourself to the world. Which can build in all

Speaker B: 00:23:17

these other things we're talking about, about adaptability and so on. Yeah. And the other sort of aspect of self-awareness is there's that introspection, that private self-awareness, but then there's also your public self-awareness of the way you're perceived and what other people expect of you. And I think one of the things that I've just been thinking about as we've been talking there is that this notion of authenticity, it assumes that there is a core there to be either authentic or inauthentic about, right? Now, I personally find this quite difficult because... You're just an empty shell of a man. An empty shell of a man. I view myself through self-awareness as a nihilist, right? But that's not a choice. Most people, they go, oh, I'm a rationalist or an idealist or whatever because they've thought about it a bit and they've reached a decision, a reasoned decision, right? The reason I'm a nihilist is because it just feels natural. Maybe that's the case with all philosophies. But if you have no sort of strong beliefs to adhere to, how can you be inauthentic or authentic? The other thing I think is interesting is the extent to which actually over time, if you are inauthentic enough, does that become your authenticity? And I always think of olives, right, as an example, which I didn't like olives until about three years ago, but I would occasionally sort of nibble them because they were the sort of thing that one was expected to. But generally, I kind of avoided them, but I accepted when people were sort of blaring on about how great olives from Tuscany were or something, you'd sort of nod your head. But eventually, I started liking olives and then you do like olives. So it's no longer inauthentic. So I wonder the extent to which the brain being plastic, you actually by fitting in, suddenly

Speaker A: 00:25:26

that becomes the real, the real you. Well, you know, it becomes even more complex when someone is actively enjoys conformism. I mean, you know, which needn't be someone just saying, you know what, I'm a conformist and I love fitting in, but just like someone who actually just likes making other people happy. And, you know, the kind of people who'd be like, oh, you know, let's go out to dinner where you want to go out to dinner because I don't really mind. And they actually mean it, right. They actually mean that they get happy or people who like, you know, who were really mad football fans because they like being with other football fans. But if all of their friends were rugby fans, they'd be a rugby fan. Right. So but but I mean, that's because it's authentically them to be really kind of sociable and and want to fit in with people. So, you know,

Speaker C: 00:26:12

I guess it's also about the effort that's required. Like there's something about if you're trying too hard, maybe that's being inauthentic. It should there's something about authenticity that feels like it should be effortless or it shouldn't require any like as Chris was sort of saying that it shouldn't require any further introspection. It should just come out of you. And I think that's and that is another layer of complexity. It's like it is being authentic, just sort of. It's kind of what Nick was saying, maybe just swaying with with the situation and seeing it for what it is rather than trying to exert some kind of control over something.

Speaker A: 00:26:51

Also, this makes me think of I've got a mate who's terribly posh. And often when I'm with him, I feel a bit embarrassed because he just he never changes who he is. Right. And and so and he's can be quite arrogant and arrogant is not fair, a little bit abrupt, entitled, entitled. And so if you're in a pub or a restaurant or whether the way he speaks to people. So firstly, I get a little bit embarrassed because his accent doesn't change. And he's like that. Other people probably don't mind. Well, hold on. And so and second. Yeah. And the way he speaks to people, I think is a bit abrupt, whereas I definitely knowingly or unknowingly change my accent one and two. I'm I always try to make mates with waiters and staff and have a little chat. And I really enjoy that. But here's the thing. It's one like say he's very posh. So that's maybe his background. That's what used to being entitled, maybe. But two aims. And what's our aim in life? Right. Because it goes back to this collective versus an individual, because by pretty much most measures, he's more successful than me. And he has charged ahead in life and sort of carved a path for himself and his family and so on. And maybe I have not quite what I'm trying to say is I actually quite respect his unchangeability, whatever you want to call it, you know. He had to fight against the disadvantage of going to Eton and then Oxford. He did go to Eton actually. And then getting a job at his dad's company. It's a nightmare. I wonder why he's so successful. How did he do it against such incredible odds? Yeah, no, but there is. He's one of the most confident people I've ever met. And I just I'd like a bit of that, you know. Well, this is, I think, perhaps where we need to go for the explanation. And so we've talked around quite a lot. And then we need to round this all up. Yeah. And actually, I came across a quote only the other day, in fact, by Robin Hanson, who, of course, is the probably most famous for promoting the idea of kind of signalling, but also the universality of signalling as a kind of driver of human behaviour. And he says, what you really think, in inverted commas, is substantially created by your social world and need not come from your high mind. So encouraging everyone to ignore social context and just say what they really think, just isn't obviously going to induce a world dominated by high minds, nor does it have much chance of actually happening. So he's putting forward the view. I lost all of that, but it's fine. Jordan was nodding. That's good. He's putting forward the view that you don't know what you really think. In fact, the concept doesn't really exist, that actually your beliefs are determined by a whole range of things that aren't cognitively accessible to you, including things like your social status and the social status you're trying to project and all of that, which goes back to Chris's point of, you know, the higher status someone is, the more they can be their self. And that's why I think we think of being yourself, in inverted commas, as a high status thing, because you don't need to worry about impressing anyone above you. You're already at the top of the status hierarchy, you can do what you want. When you're a bit lower down than that, you might think you're being yourself, you might think, and I'm sure you've heard people say this, oh, I wear a suit for me, or I put makeup on for me, because you don't even know how much of what you think is genuinely you is determined by some inner thing and all the outer world that you've found yourself in. And the argument would be that, you know, we've evolved, it's so important for us to have social approval, that we have evolved a very kind of fundamental desire for it that we're not really aware of. So, so we think, oh, I want, I want to do that. I want to be polite to this person. Or, you know, I want to, you know, say that I like this food when I don't. That's me, that's authentically me. But you don't know what that means. It's not even clear what that means, is his view. The idea of consciousness sort of skating over and rationalising. Exactly. And so I guess the problem is that, you know, being yourself, as it were, if that means, you know, letting it all hang out in some sense, like, like doing what you really would do at home right now, is a feature of being high status. But it really is not a route to high status, much as Hollywood would like you to think it is. You know, suddenly being yourself is probably not a very good idea in a lot of contexts.

Speaker B: 00:31:14

Well, especially when you look at the other people who are themselves, who are the people right at the bottom of society. The Vladimir's and Estragon's sitting on their park bench, you know, sort of falling over and rowing with each other. You know, so I think you've either got to be at the top. So there's nobody above you to tell you what to do or you've dropped out, you know, and you're at the bottom and there's nowhere there's nowhere else to go.

Speaker A: 00:31:39

Yes. And if you if you were cynical about it, you might say the reason that that Hollywood screenwriters want to encourage people to be themselves is because it pushes if you followed that advice, it would push you down the social hierarchy by and large. It's propaganda. Yeah. Hey, you should be yourself. I'm going to carry on being what my boss wants me to be, but you know, you should be yourself. Nice. We need to run this up. So here's a question. Can you give me a moment, a specific memory when perhaps even either in the moment or after that moment, you realised that you were being inauthentic, whatever that means in the bounds of what we've been talking about. Does anyone want to go for it? I'm not sure if it's a good question. I think it is a good question. It's a hard question.

Speaker B: 00:32:26

You don't just go, oh, yeah, I remember that time.

Speaker A: 00:32:27

Because it's hard to, I mean, you're inauthentic right now. You usually bury those memories in shame. OK, Jordan's got one. So Jordan can lead off and then that might sort of inspire us. Jordan.

Speaker C: 00:32:39

I it's a bit of a funny one, but I guess it's when when I was at school and I really tried to get into like punk music and skating and stuff. I really tried to do that for a long time. Into what? Sorry? Punk music and skateboarding. Oh, OK. Skateboarding as an activity, mainly, I guess, to sort of sort of fit in. But I was trying to do it and it didn't really work for me at all. And then I eventually realized I just didn't I wasn't into it at all, but I just it was it was a sort of I guess that's when I was being inauthentic because I was trying to sort of align myself with a fashion or something. But it wasn't really it wasn't me. You realize you just weren't cool. Well, not in that way. Still cool.

Speaker A: 00:33:27

Anyone else? I've got this isn't really an answer to a question because I think I'm not I'm not going to sit here and claim that I I am unusually authentic, but I am. I've been conscious for a long time of like really rejecting things that felt inauthentic to me. And one example that pops into my mind, apart from at, you know, at school on mufti days. So, in other words, days where you kind of could wear your your own clothes. And I used to just take take my tie off. I'd pay them. I just wear school uniform, but without the tie because everyone else like people would come in wearing, you know, the latest fashions, which at the time were for some reason naff naff clothing and stuff and like really baggy jeans and stuff. It was the 90s. And I hated all that. And I remember being conscious of like never wanting to wear jeans. So I haven't worn jeans since I was given them at the age of about eight because they just don't feel like me. And it's weird because nobody thinks anything of you if you wear jeans. They're a completely normal thing to wear, but they're just I have this really strong aversion to wearing jeans. It kind of reminds me of something David Mitchell once said, which was the reason he hates clothes shopping is that he doesn't want anyone to look at him and think you think you look good in that. And I feel the same about what I wear. Like I almost deliberately wear stuff that is where no one could ever accuse me of trying to look good. Yeah, no, you're very self-aware of you. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, it's it's true. I definitely I think I I struggle to be an authentic, actually. It may not it may not have been good for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got it. Yeah. Chris?

Speaker B: 00:35:15

Yeah, I remember when I was seven or eight and there was a general election and my family were very much a labor supporting family. And I decided to make my own conservative banner and put it in my window. And and I like at the time, I sort of thought it was obviously an act of rebellion. It wasn't one that I authentically felt because I did have that sort of indoctrination against the kind of the Thatcher government. But I now sort of look back and I think, well, that was quite that was quite interesting. You know, did I did did I actually have some because, you know, I really struggle with because that sense of political identity is very much sort of it's like supporting a football team for me rather than what do you actually think? So there's an element of sort of political authenticity that isn't about what, you know, look at the manifestos, what what do you actually believe in, which should be what you're doing? Right. But there's this element of, oh, somehow I'm on this team and it's my job to like these ideas over over here, whether they make sense for your point in life or stage in life or not.

Speaker A: 00:36:41

But also in that sort of act of what it was inauthentic, inauthentic, right? However, I think you were being very authentic to the Chris Wragg that I know a bit of. Don't tell me what to do or, you know, being a little bit contrarian about things. And, you know, so yeah. Chris has just reminded me of my communist phase, which I went through at the age of about 13, 14, purely because I was at a private school. And I thought being a communist would be a way to, you know, a pate le bourgeois. Like every other private school boy. Exactly. Yeah. Decided I was a communist. Had a load of, you know, revolutionaries come and appropriated my house, I wouldn't have been very happy about it. You'd be less keen on the whole concept. Yeah, yeah. I'm struggling with this one. I think in many ways, I think I'm a bit of a free spirit, I would say, more or less, you know, I'm not a company man. And I thought you were going to say something else. No, I am that. Yeah. Yeah, it just I think my whole life has been a struggle for authenticity, you know, thinking of school, going to one of these private schools and then work and behaving at work. And and even where I live just outside London, which I found a bit of a kind of, you know, welcome to Pleasant Valley Sunday kind of place with all the plastics and the norms. And but maybe I'm exactly that. And I have to say, you'll be pleased now. I've come to a moment in my life where I feel more authentic. Great. This supports our theory that the two people who are most authentic, you and me. One is one is high status and one is very low status. It supports our argument perfectly. Beautifully encapsulates it. Okay, I think let's wind up. By the way, I feel really authentic in these podcasts, actually. That's one of the things I like about doing them. I really do. Hopefully the listeners appreciate it too. Sadly, this is me revealed in all my, you know. Okay, let's stop there. I really like that one. All right. Thanks, as always. I don't think we fully kind of resolved it. It doesn't can't be resolved. I think we unpicked the issue quite frantically. So we'll stop there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Jordan Fermanis, Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.