In which I wrestle with caffeine and identity
Performing myself
I wrote my dissertation largely without the benefit of caffeine. At the time, I was experiencing frequent (benign) heart palpitations that were exacerbated by it, so my doctor said to keep away. I also just don’t want to rely on it, so at that time I fairly cheerfully refrained for the most part. Recently that has changed, and although I still want not to rely on it, I drink a couple of cups of “real” coffee and often one or two cups of black or puer tea in a week. It’s not necessarily about the alertness, though I’ll take it. It’s more about the mood boost.
A number of events in the past four years have made me sadder overall and given me sharp edges. I find lately that my burdens weigh on me in ways I don’t think they used to. (Also they’re somewhat heavier.) I think of myself as a fairly sunny person, and for better or worse I’m dispositionally an optimist. And I can still find the good in most things. But when I do, I don’t feel it as often as I used to. I can practice gratitude in a propositional way, knowing rationally all the very many things I have to be grateful for, but that’s different from feeling joy at the thought of them. There’s less of that now. And I find I dwell on some difficulties more than I might have five years ago.1
Maybe this is just maturity and the realism that comes with it. When I have a cup of (non-decaf) coffee, however, I feel like my old (normal?) self. Which makes it very tempting to have a cup of coffee every day—but I don’t, because if I did that, over time the effects would lessen, defeating the purpose.
Recently I found myself wrestling with the question of which one of these people is me? The caffeine-free sadder, snarkier version, or the chemically-powered sunnier, more bouyant version? It bothered me because I like sunny me and I rather miss her. (Am I trapped in happiness culture?) But if I need external help in order to be her, am I really still her? Is the caffeine bringing out what’s “really” there, which is fogged over by my burdens, or is it just a sort of costume I can put on to pretend for a while?
(Coffee and pop drinkers may wish to roll their eyes at what can admittedly be seen as a pseudo-problem and tell me to get over it, and I’d accept that as fair. I suspect I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Still, I’ve really wrestled with this.)
My worrying about this at all, as a loss of who I am, assumes something about personal identity that isn’t necessarily a sound assumption: that I have some kind of essence that defines me, that there’s some “real” me in here somewhere that is more authentic than the other(s?). I’m not sure what contemporary psychologists say about this (sorry, didn’t do my research here), but Scottish philosopher David Hume rejected it, and so did the existentialists, as well as the Buddha.2 It’s a hard notion to ditch, though, even if I accept any of those arguments on a rational level. From the inside it feels like I’m a self. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.
But theories of the self aren’t really what have been bugging me, fascinating as they are. I know I am both of these people, and this is a false dilemma. I think the worry is more the question of whether I can still be the person I prefer to be “from within,” if you will, rather than by relying on foreign substances to bring her out. If I need caffeine to feel like “me,”3 then that’s not really who I am anymore—is it? Consuming caffeine is like putting on a costume or a mask. As Mr. Rogers reminds us, you’re not the clothes you wear, the way you do your hair, or your toys. Right?
We’re used to the idea that what’s really you is the mind contained in the “meat popsicle”4 that goes naked into the shower. But it’s more complicated than that. In a great piece that I love to give my students just to mess with them to teach them about logical arguments, philosopher Andy Clark argues, essentially, that our cell phones are extensions of our minds. Why not think, then, that external things can also be part of our selves? Surely that’s the case for people with artificial limbs. I’m willing to say that part of my memory is stored in my phone: appointments, phone numbers, tasks I need to do.
Under what conditions, then, are external things “parts” of us (and what do we even mean by those words?)? We’re used to saying that our clothes, our hair, and our toys “are just beside [us]”, as Mr. Rogers says. But to the extent that we’re free to use these things in self-expression5 , are they also a part of our identities—an extended self? They’re much more sheddable than what we carry inside us. And when we suffer the losses of our external things (as when disaster strikes), we often console ourselves by saying that they were just things and we still have what’s important. That’s largely true, but the loss of our stuff is nevertheless a loss, and it’s related to the self.6 Our things are just things, but at the same time, they help to anchor our sense of ourselves.7
I’ve slid here from talk of a self to talk of identity, when those are really two different things. Still, the concepts are closely related, and luckily this isn’t professional philosophy, so I’m not going to dig into the nature of the relationship right now. The important kernel here is that if clothes, hair, toys, and other people can help us express—and therefore be—who we are, might it also make sense to say that caffeine can serve a similar function?
The arguments I’ve touched on are about the ways external objects might be part of our selves. Caffeine isn’t an object in this sense, though in this case I’m using it to help me express what I think of as my “real” self, just as I use clothing. There’s another consideration, though. People use various pharmaceuticals to feel and act more like themselves when they’re dealing with depression, anxiety, or other disorders, and we think them valuable tools for self-regulation in cases like that—tools that help people be the selves they prefer to be. That doesn’t mean that depression, anxiety, etc. isn’t still a part of them. Medication helps “quiet” the relevant parts of the brain so that the depressive/anxious/etc. side doesn’t take over.8 If that’s the case with antidepressants, it seems to me that it could fit my case as well: caffeine helps quiet the sadder, snarkier parts of me so that the rest can also have its voice—or, I guess in my case, it helps the sunnier side shine out. Sharp-edged me isn’t gone, and she gets her moments, but she’s not in charge, either.
Furthermore, as I write this, I’m realizing that by making choices about when and how external things like caffeine (or phones, or clothes, for that matter) become or express part of us, we’re taking control of our own narratives and defining which of the many facets of ourselves are most “us.” (Which is exactly what the existentialists would have us do.) Being a self, then, is performative. Perhaps that’s what a “self” really is, in the end—a performance, a narrative we build and act out, which can change direction or be rewritten over time. I don’t think it’s pretending, however. It’s genuinely who we are.
After getting this far, I googled “identity as performance” and discovered that this is a thing, though in a quick pass I’m not sure it’s exactly what I had in mind just now. Seems like I need to do some more digging. For now, having thought all this out, I’m okay with the reasons I use caffeine. Case closed! Isn’t philosophy great?
Don’t worry, I don’t have clinical depression. My therapist assured me.
For the record, Hume, the existentialists, and the Buddha all meant somewhat different things when they claimed there was no essential self. (It’s a fascinating philosophical area, the notion of the self.)
Let’s assume for the moment that there are no other ways to achieve this, though I suspect that with a fair amount of cognitive behavioral training, I could probably manage it without chemicals.
Shout out to fans of The Fifth Element. Green?
Always recognizing that some have more means than others for using things this way.
I wrote an article about things related to this years ago: “Clutter as a Misplaced Response to Value,” Philosophy in the Contemporary World 20:2 (Fall 2013), pp.77-86.
I’d be remiss not the point out that other people do too. In fact, other people are integral to building our sense of self and our identity. That’s what it means to be a relational creature.
Thanks to a friend who will remain anonymous for help getting this articulated right. You know who you are.
It's interesting; I was pondering a related question some time ago when thinking about free will and personality. Specifically, if there is no free will (Spinoza's position), does anyone have any control over their behavior, and, as a result, over their perceived personality?
In addition to caffeine, there are so many other things that influence our behavior: whether we had a good night's sleep, whether we had to skip lunch due to too much work, whether we had a fight with our significant other the night before, and the types of food we consume on a regular basis, just to name a few. As our daily behavior is shaped by these and many other factors in our lives, you could say that these factors shape our personalities.
One could object that, yes, all of the above factors certainly influence our behavior on a daily basis, but what truly defines our personalities is how we respond to these factors and how much influence on our behavior we allow them to have. A calm and kind person will stay calm and kind even if they haven't had enough sleep or are hungry. But is this truly the case? Perhaps this person, who is consistently perceived as calm and kind, has a thicker prefrontal cortex that allows them to better control their emotions despite the lack of food or sleep. The big question is: did this "good" person choose to behave in this fashion despite all their life's challenges, or do they simply have the genetic makeup conducive to behaving as a good person? Did a mean and cranky person choose to behave this way? Perhaps, they simply have inadequate prefrontal cortical brain power (largely determined by genetics) to resist the environmental factors mentioned earlier—such as interrupted sleep, hunger, emotional trauma, etc.—that translate into the behavior most people would define as negative and unpleasant.
To sum it up, I think I agree with Spinoza about the lack of free will. I think our personalities are largely defined by genetics that make us more or less susceptible to the environmental influences on our behavior. This sounds very pessimistic, but there is a silver lining to all this: one could potentially improve one's personality by improving one's diet, getting a good amount of sleep, and surrounding oneself with positive people.
Getting back to your thoughts about whether the caffeinated you is you, I think yes, of course it is you! So is uncaffeinated you. So is sleep-deprived and hangry you. Because of our interconnectedness with the environment, we are truly multifaceted beings with different personalities that can be explored at will, if desired: caffeinated, drunk, hangry, sleep-deprived, on an antidepressant, high on cannabis or psilocybin, etc. All of the above represents a specific part of us as being in the world, what Heidegger called Dasein. As we are unable to avoid being influenced by our environment in one way or another, I think we have to accept that we are all those things and be done with it. :)
Philosophy IS great!