Part II of what will be Greater-Than-One Parts… Read Part I here
Pt. 1: TL;DR
If you read Thing #4, You probably noticed, Kind Reader, that Part I of this poorly-titled-until-now series, The Identity Equation, was about Avoidance.
When we don’t like things, we avoid them. “Better doing Literally Anything Else than entertain That,” says Avoidance. “Better stripping the world of any Identity than try to figure out your own, Sam.”
But, just because we don’t like something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. (Try closing your eyes in an awkward situation and see if that helps any.) So, Part I was an Acknowledgment: Everyone has an Identity. Even if we don’t like that Identity, it’s there.
We explored proper nouns broadly, but also (tangentially, minimally) the obsession with Capital-ism and Capital-ism’s relationship with Capitalism. Not sure if we learned much of anything other than (duh!): Capital-ism exists, whether we like it or not.
Avoiding Identity was a cute attempt at a contrarian, even Utopian world but a fruitless, childish attempt no less. In doing so, I was avoiding a very Beautiful Thing about the world: Everyone is united in Identity. Identity is the one thing we People all share (besides, you know, bones, blood, and skin and stuff).
So, if Everyone has an Identity—if it’s the thing that unites us all—I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s maybe-kinda pretty important, this whole Identity thing.
But what is an Identity?
Tempting to answer right away. But first, a digression:
In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the same advantages that you have.”
Yes, and… I’d like to add “disadvantages” and, mostly, “indistinguishable-vantages” (good? bad? who knows?) to this advice from Nick Carraway’s Dad. Good advice for all of Us, Everyone.
Let’s “circle back” to this Later in Class.
The Identity Equation
Everyone remember Math? No? Ok. Activity time! Go Google “math” and have some fun. Just be back in time for Dinner…
Great! Now let’s do something fun (scary). Math.
Let i be defined as the sum of two sets: Visible Identifiers and Non-visible Identifiers. We’ll use v and x to represent these. In Math terms:
where:
v = {Nose1, Mouth, Height, Skin, Teeth, Jewelry, Hair, Clothes, Tattoos, Build, …, η}
and
x = {Hobbies, Intellectual Curiosity, Toothpaste Flavor Preference, Family Life, Books Read, Neighborhood/Residence, Friends, Schooling, Hours Spent Doom-Scrolling vs. In-Nature, News Sources, Spirituality/Religious Beliefs/Rituals, Favorite Pizza Place, Exercise Habits, # Items Growing Mold In Fridge, What Keeps Me Up At Night, What Glues Me To The Couch, Things Hanging On My Bedroom Walls, Concerts Attended, Places I’ve Been, Places I’ll Go, Dr. Seuss Books I Know, …, η}
(Note: the term “η” here is used to express “Lots of other stuff”. We could use the Latin abbreviation, “etc.” instead, but it’s Math so it feels like we should use a Greek letter. Also please Note/Highlight/Underline/Glitter-Circle that while both v and x contain “Lots of other stuff”, the set of x contains lots more “Lots of other stuff”.)
Often, we define v within a few seconds of meeting someone. In fact, there are scientific, University-sponsored studies demonstrating that we create some concept of v in one-tenth of a second. (Learned or pre-programmed? Who knows? But talk about unconscious bias and subconscious Judgment!)
Getting to know x, on the other hand, takes some t—wait a second! The above equation is super misleading. A most crucial, evasive variable is missing. Let’s try accounting for Time:
This says “i is equal to all Visible and Non-visible Identifiers, raised to the power of Time.”
Now, i changes with Time. But we didn’t just “add” Time to the equation, we raised the entire previous equation to an exponential power. Implications? As Time grows, the weight of v and x grow too, at least relative to The Past. Now, a Non-visible Identifier in The Present carries more weight than a Non-Visible Identifier from The Past.
That’s not always true, though, is it?
People tend to latch onto The Past. Older Family-Friend might remember i as Cute Widdle Kid Wif A Wisp (“My, how much you’ve grown!” Older Family-Friend says in disbelief upon hearing i talk). Jerk From High School might remember i as Pepperoni Pimple-Face Who Peed His Pants (“That was one time!” i says. “People don’t forget,” says Jerk From High School). Ex-Lover might remember i as One That Got Away (or, maybe equally as likely, Literal Worst Human Being Ever). Party Guy From College might remember i as… Party Guy From College (“Duuuude!” “Broooo!”). And to Somebody Battling Serious Self-Hurt, i might take on the role of Saved My Life (i may never know how much a simple smile can mean to Sombody).
i also might be stuck in The Past, thinking about i’s Self. It’s not uncommon for i to see i’s Self as Never Be No One or Never Amount To Nothing when in reality i has already Amounted To Quite A Lot, when i is already Someone To Be Proud Of.
These Past i’s often take up more space, fill up the perception of i more than they should. Even if The Present i should be weighted more heavily, all those Past i’s add up too.
Let’s rewrite the equation to include gamut of i’s:
This says (I think; we’re kind of pushing my limits with respect to, you know, Actual Real Math): “i is equal to the sum of all Visible and Non-visible Identifiers across time, from Zero to Infinity”. In Human terms: i is the sum of all i’s from Past to Present, even Future.
i is no longer a “snapshot” from The Present (there’s no such thing as a complete Fresh Start) or some relic from The Past either. i is now is a continuum, an exponentially-growing continuum.
And there we have it: The Identity Equation. Satisfied?
Me neither.
Societal Complications
i doesn’t live in a vacuum. Does i? (Sometimes it feels like it but…) No. i lives in The (Digital) Real World, which we often call Society. Including The Real World, The Identity Equation becomes:
Now we have: “i is equal to the sum of all Visible and Non-visible Identifiers, divided by Society; across time, from Zero to Infinity”.
Why divide by s? Well, This Writer thinks Society tends to divide us. Society tends to pull us from the True i, if any such thing exists, into a Common i, one that is easier to manage.
But Society is complex: sometimes it adds, sometimes it subtracts, multiplies, etc. That’s why s is a variable. As a variable s can be large or small, positive or negative. As such, s can do anything to change i, at any point in Time. Which is, ya know, kinda what Society does.
Still, maybe it’s better to split The Real World into Society (which tends to divide) and Community (which tends to multiply) so we get:
Or: “i is equal to the sum of all Visible and Non-visible Identifiers, multiplied by Community, divided by Society; across time, from Zero to Infinity”.
That’s good enough—for now; until the Scientific Community (ahem, You, Kind Reader) contributes something more encompassing/cogent than my crackpot theoretical assertions. Yes, The Identity Equation is already too complex for my Small Mind, so let’s move on.
Accounting for Other variables
Most the day we’re out in The (Digital) Real World where we interact with Others (other i’s).
Out in The (Digital) Real World, if we believe The Identity Equation, we’ll remember those Others are mostly made of Non-visible Identifiers—out of sight, not absent.
As such, we should try to keep ourselves Open to the things that might not be Visible in Others, not reduce them to what we see. Even if Research (referenced earlier, linked below) says we do this basically automatically, against our Free Will (“Pshh,” says Research, “Free Will? Yeah right”).
Visible Identifiers are undoubtedly present and therefore we may be aware of them (some of us, Too Aware). But, as much as we can help it, we should not attach our understanding of Others strictly to the Visible. We are so much better than that. We are, all of us i’s, so much greater than that.
We should be similarly Open with Ourselves. Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing Pepperoni Pimple-Face (no thanks to you, Jerk From High School), or Whatever (Often-Negative) We See, we can remember Pepperoni Pimple-Face (or Whatever) is just 1 of a large set Visual Identifiers, occurring at 1 point in Time. And, the set of Visible Identifiers is large—yes—but so much smaller than the set of Non-visible Identifiers. Plus, Time does that whole Infinity thing—and Infinity is, like, really really big.
In other (Math) words, let’s remember:
More precisely:
Solving for x
i often focuses on Others’ otherness. i sees: their v is different than i’s—even if there’s actually a lot in union between their x and i’s.
But if i thinks about it, Others are just like i.
All of Us are i, made up of v + x (under influence of c, s and ceaseless t). v is just easier to see—quite literally—than x.
Remember that digressive advice about not criticizing Others from earlier? Not everyone “has had the same advantages” (or “disadvantages” or “indistingushable-vantages”) as You (all of Us, Everyone).
We should try to get to know all the “-vantages”—those Non-visible Identifiers—that make i who i is, as best we can.
Instead of assigning names willy-nilly and clinging on to them, like we often do, I hope we (all of Us, Everyone) can think and talk more freely about the proper nouns we Identify with and those we don’t. We should define, not assign.
Even if Really Getting To Know Someone is an impossible task (due to the presence of Time in the Identity Equation and Time’s notorious ceaselessness), we should still give it our best shot. Let’s all give our damn best shot at those things we so often avoid because they’re difficult:
Ask each Other tons’a questions. Listen, Indiscriminately. Try to solve for x.
Thank You for reading, Kind Reader!
If Math ain’t your bag, don’t worry! Tune in next week for Limits & Problems with The Identity Equation, which will be a little more Liberal Arts than Math & Sciences.
Feel free to comment below or shoot me a note if you think of Limits & Problems with The Identity Equation and I’ll do (try) my best to address them next week.
Happy Super Bowl Sunday,
Jam
References + More
For any Old Heads (or Internet-Avoidant Young’ns), TL;DR means “Too Long; Didn’t Read” … also known as a “summary”
Nick Carraway is, of course, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 book The Great Gatsby. The quote from his father is the opening two paragraphs of the book. “So we beat on…” is the book’s famously over-used final line
“Many Unbearable Hours Later” is from the childhood-defining Nickelodeon show Sponge Bob Squarepants
When I asked You to Google “math”, I hope at least some of You went down spiraling rabbit holes like I did. Here are two of the rabbit holes I found myself in:
Raphael’s The School of Athens, located in The Vatican, a detail from which is the first image on the Wikipedia page on Mathematics
That Youtube-ancient clip of Bo Burnham’s "New Math"
Princeton psychologist Alex Todorov found that People decide if Others are Trustworthy within 100 milliseconds (0.1 seconds) in this 2006 study. Todorov says:
“The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn't stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance. We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we haven't exchanged a single word with them.”
The Beatles’ “Nowhere Man” is a great example of i seeing i’s Self as Never Be No One or Never Amount To Nothing
“People don’t forget” is what Jonah Hill’s character says to Dave Franco’s character (who, apparently, pissed his pants “like 8 years ago, Asshole”) in the 2007 High School Hilarity, Superbad
The Identity Equation is too complex for Sam’s Small Mind but is it “too complex for ComplexCon?” (No.) Is this Reference—to Kanye’s line after “Poop, scoop!/Whoop! Whoopty-whoop!” in Pusha T’s “What Would Meek Do?”—too forced? (Undoubtedly.)
I heard a song called “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts” this week; relevantly, by a band named X
Nothing to do with what we’re talking about, necessarily—but also: everything to do with what we’re talking about— the other week, I finally read Gogol’s “The Nose”. It was first published in 1836 but I only found about in 2019, watching a friend blow smoke with a fellow chain-smoker outside a bar in Chicago. My friend tried to explain “It’s a kinda-Surrealist story about a guy who wakes up one day without a nose … and then runs into said Nose on the street”. Nose actually insults Noseless Man, is dressed in a more elite member of society’s clothes, and then tries to skate town (presumably to avoid going back on Noseless Man’s face). Hilarity ensues, Russian Society is poked fun at, questions about Life…remain unanswered. Anyway, maybe reading that story subconsciously got me on this whole Visible Identifiers tangent. Who knows? Anyway, go read “The Nose” if you haven’t.