Walt Whitman said it best back in 1855: “I contain multitudes.”

We all do. We all carry different identities around with us, often in competition with each other.

You might be a “Proud Italian” one minute, then a “Proud Democrat” the next. Or “The World's biggest Elton John fan.” Or a husband. Or a wife. Or gay. Or straight. Or a Wall Street trader. Or a TV writer. Or a cowboy. Or a steel worker from Pennsylvania.

It goes on and on.

But what Balaji Srinivasan says, in his wonderful interview in a July 2022 Tim Ferriss podcast is not only do we have many different identities, our identities have their own hierarchies. The fact that you’re a Republican might be a bigger deal to you than your Scottish ancestry. Or the fact that you’re great at golf might be a bigger deal to you than your Jewish heritage. And these hierarchies are constantly shifting as well. Your Jewish heritage probably matters a lot more during Shabbat than your golf swing does.

This is by no means a bad thing. The reason we have so many complex identities is that the world is a complex place to begin with, and we were evolved to handle complex situations. And so here we are. Complex souls with complex identities in a complex world solving complex problems.

It’s the human condition.