3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

We live with a quiet superstition: that beneath the noise of our habits, mistakes and contradictions lies a truer version of ourselves - a self that is fundamentally good.

An alcoholic who gets sober is “becoming who he really is”, a sober man who starts drinking again has “lost his way.”

In Scrooge, Dickens didn’t just write about a man who swapped stinginess for generosity; he wrote about a man who discovered his real nature.

When Richard Nixon fell in disgrace, people said power had corrupted his real self but when Nelson Mandela forgave his captors, the world said his true self had been revealed.

Or real life: patients with dementia who lose memory but retain kindness are often seen by loved ones as “still the same person,” while those who grow cruel are perceived as having lost their essence.

Even when fiction tries to make villains irredeemable, audiences resist - Darth Vader is terrifying until he saves his son and proves there was goodness “deep down.”

We are reluctant to accept that anyone, even Satan in Paradise Lost, is rotten all the way through.

Our language betrays the bias; goodness is authenticity while badness is a mask.

Psychologists have tested this belief and the results are strikingly consistent - people overwhelmingly identify morally positive changes as revealing someone’s “true self” but dismiss negative changes as surface corruption.

The clearest demonstration comes from a study about a man called Mark.

Mark’s life was presented in two versions; in one, he was a devout Christian who believed homosexuality was wrong but admitted he was attracted to men, in the other he was a liberal who believed homosexuality was perfectly acceptable but confessed to feeling repulsed by same-sex couples.

In both cases Mark was split - a belief pulled him one way while a feeling pulled him the other.

The question to participants was simple: which side represented his true self?

Liberals almost always said the attraction to men revealed who Mark really was, while his disgust at homosexuality was right wing programming.

Conservatives almost always said his conviction against homosexuality revealed who he really was, and his public support was woke peer pressure.

Basically, each group looked at the same man and saw their own values reflected back at them.

It wasn’t that people consistently treated beliefs as more authentic or feelings as less genuine, instead they treated whichever side lined up with their own moral compass as the “real” side.

This has some fascinating implications.

It suggests that authenticity isn’t something we find inside others, instead it’s something we project onto them.

What counted as Mark’s essence wasn’t hiding “in” him at all, it existed in the values of the people judging him.

These fights are never just about evidence; they’re about who gets to define authenticity.

Interestingly the whole exercise only works when someone is conflicted - if Mark had only one belief or one feeling, no one would hesitate to declare “that’s who he is.”

Conflict is the playground where we get to impose our judgments about which side counts as the real self.

There are consequences to always seeing ourselves and others we favour as moral.

It cushions us from despair, because failures can be brushed aside as “not really me” which makes bouncing back after mistakes easier.

But it also blinds us to our own cruelty, because harmful actions are rationalised as accidents or aberrations.

It creates an asymmetry where we forgive ourselves quickly while judging others more harshly.

It skews our sense of authenticity, because we treat virtuous impulses as real and darker ones as intrusions.

It can make us dangerously naïve about people who are not conflicted at all, those for whom malice is not a mask but a pattern.

And it fuels a lifelong quest to “uncover the good self,” as though the work of living is not making choices, but excavating purity.

To add even more complexity, notice how unevenly this belief gets applied.

If goodness is the truth and badness is a mask, then in theory we should treat all people’s goodness as authentic and all people’s badness as superficial, but that isn’t what we do.

With our allies, we assume their virtues show who they really are, while their failures are only slips, distortions, or masks.

With our opponents, we reverse it - their good deeds are dismissed as fake or manipulative, while their mistakes and vices are taken as proof of their true character.

This double standard shows that the rule isn’t actually “goodness is authenticity”, the rule is “the kind of goodness I value is authenticity.”

Our side’s goodness is treated as essence while the other side’s goodness is treated as performance.

Our side’s failings are masks but the other side’s failings are revelations.

Psychologically this makes sense.

In small groups, assuming hidden goodness in insiders helped maintain trust and cohesion while assuming hidden badness in outsiders helped define the boundary between “us” and “them.”

But the cost is distortion - we give our friends a free pass while demonising our rivals, blinded to their real virtues and our own side’s flaws.

What looks like a rule about human nature (“goodness is truth, badness is a mask”) turns out to actually be a rule about group loyalty.

So here’s a disconcerting idea - what if our “true self” doesn’t exist at all?

What if we are nothing but the bundle of drives, beliefs, and feelings that show up in the moment?

The addict is just as much himself when he drinks as when he doesn’t.

Scrooge was authentically Scrooge as a miser and as a benefactor.

We only anoint the generous version “authentic” because it flatters our sense of what humans ought to be.

In this light, the true self isn’t discovered, it’s invented.

The fiction makes forgiveness possible, but it also blinds us to cruelty and shortcomings.

It allows us to keep loving people even at their worst, but it also tricks us into underestimating malice.

We say every tyrant or abuser has a hidden spark of goodness, even when sometimes there is none.

You can see this bias everywhere.

Addicts in recovery routinely say “that wasn’t the real me” about their lowest points, but no one ever says sobriety is fake.

Childhood stories teach us the frog is really a prince, the beast really gentle - the happy ending is always framed as a revelation of what was hidden all along.

Therapists describe patients “getting back to themselves” after depression, but it is almost unthinkable to frame it the other way - that the depressed version is the truest one.

Even in daily life, when a kind friend lashes out in anger we soothe ourselves by saying “that’s not who she is” but when they show generosity, we never say “that’s not them”.

I hope this is not the truth, but here’s my fear: there may be no “real you” at all.

The true self isn’t something to be discovered, instead it’s something we invent - a superstition we cling to because it makes forgiveness easier, love sustainable, and cruelty bearable.

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MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent.
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This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Dr John Delony - should your spouse should have all the passwords to your phone? The most common issues men are struggling with, why safety is os important and how to end a relationship. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
Dr Sarah Hill - a fascinating deep dive into how monthly hormone cycles impact women’s psychology by the author of Your Brain On Birth Control. Must listen.

Saturday.
Katie Herzog - there’s a spicy new solution to alcohol use disorder which involves continuing to drink booze while taking a drug alongside it. Really interesting.

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THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​Men like dating younger women.

A study of age gap relationships showed that men are substantially happier when dating a woman (or man) 7+ years younger than them as opposed to 7+ years older.

Interestingly, no such effect was found in women, indicating that women could be equally satisfied in a relationship with a significantly younger or a significantly older partner, unlike men.

Women who dated older men felt significantly more financially stable when compared to dating a younger partner - this effect was not found in younger men dating older women or younger women dating older women.

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2.
​Democrats and Republicans don’t understand each other.

Democrats wrongly believed that 38% of Republicans made more than $250,000 per year, the real number was 2.2%.

In the same study, Republicans wrongly thought that 32% of Democrats were gay, lesbian or bisexual, the real number was 6.3%. — Rob Henderson

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3.
​Should pro-life campaigners be anti-circumcision?

“In America, a baby boy dies every 3 days from circumcision, often from infection.

There’s all this talk about abortion being evil when babies are killed post-birth for no reason.

Infant male circumcision makes no sense - you don’t cut off body parts to avoid cleaning them.

That would be like saying that your solution to dandruff is decapitation.” — George TheTinMen

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LIFE HACK

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It’s the most comprehensive, simple and quick way to get bloodwork done.

This is the exact test I get every 6 months.

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Big love,
Chris x

Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
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PS
Back from the UK and thriving. Good luck crushing life this week.