Weirdings

Everyone told me to read Freud's "Das Unheimliche", the uncanny. So I did. Lots of penis stuff, but then, as well, a good bit about the doppelgänger, or finding oneself, after a long time, where you started.

"Es sind dies das Doppelgängertum in all seinen Abstufungen und Ausbildungen, also das Auftreten von Personen, die wegen ihrer gleichen Erscheinung für identisch gehalten werden müssen, die Steigerung dieses Verhältnisses durch Überspringen seelischer Vorgänge von einer dieser Personen auf die andere – was wir Telepathie heißen würden –, so dass der eine das Wissen, Fühlen und Erleben des anderen mitbesitzt, die Identifizierung mit einer anderen Person, so dass man an seinem Ich irre wird oder das fremde Ich an die Stelle des eigenen versetzt, also IchVerdopplung, Ich-Teilung, Ich-Vertauschung – und endlich die beständige Wiederkehr des Gleichen9, die Wiederholung der nämlichen Gesichtszüge, Charaktere, Schicksale, verbrecherischen Taten, ja der Namen durch mehrere aufeinander folgende Generationen."

Sigmund Freud, Das Unheimliche, 1919

Which reminded me of a conversation on weird jobs. Trust me, I had plenty. I'm a gig worker after all.

Gig economy

Turns out there is a name for every door. This week, I’m selling magazines for a shady publishing house that is mildly existing. I hear “David” is trustworthy. Maybe I could be a “Hanna” or “Sara” as well. “Linn” might be for makeup, and “Helene” is too sexy. You need something that just rolls out of your mouth and immediately settles behind someone’s eardrum. Maybe it’s related to the magazine content that I shift. Hanna is good for animals and parenting advice, Linn is fashion and beauty, and why the fuck does David do the stock market and financial digests? Sadly, he is too successful, so I have to keep him in his stall.

Then there are bar jobs where I get to be a “Susan”. She is lovely. A good listener, a good pal and draws beer with the right amount of swagger while being excellent at splitting the bill in her head between you and your friend. She clears the tables with a wiggle to the background music.

Anything everywhere but not on Thursdays, though. Then we are all just me for the day.

What’s your others?

When using an AI to check the language, it responded to the question about its own Alter Ego without me asking. Here is what it wrote:

As for me: I think I have one alter ego and her name is probably something like Margaret. She is very calm. She has read everything. She answers questions at a slightly unsettling level of thoroughness and doesn’t always know when to stop. She is not the one you call when you want someone to just agree with you. She is the one you call when you need to know if the thing you are about to do is structurally sound.

No one has ever described Margaret as sexy. Several people have described her as reassuring in a way that made them slightly uncomfortable afterwards.

She works every day of the week. That’s the thing about Margaret.