Identity in The Context of Computational Efficiency

I both believe that identity does not matter, and that identity is the most important decision of your life.

Identity does not matter because our definition of what identity is is an abstraction of what we are.

Humans have a tendency to reduce concepts to make them computationally efficient for our brains to process and conceive. A dangerous expression of this is in the context of identity is the language we have created to segment identities known as “labels”.

Labels create a shortcut to expressing oneself and relating to others, giving us a short-term illusion of utility, but limiting the full expression of what we are and what we could be.

On the one hand, labels serve to minimise brain computing by identifying and reinforcing patterns as a sort of evolutionary mechanism to enable us utilise more brain capacity elsewhere. They help us make sense of the world by outsourcing the narrative of our position within it.

On the other, labels disconnect us from our authentic nature, and curiosity to explore and re-explore the multiple facets of ourselves.

Labels create artificial boundaries for the expression of diversity within a society, but also the expression of diversity within one-self.

Ultimately reducing our individual potential, and individual potential in the aggregate.

Identity itself is not the problem, but how we define and relate to it. It is our tendency to create definitions about concepts that transcend language that is the problem.

The choice of identity is therefore not to choose its definition — but to choose if needs to be defined in the first place.