How self-expression shapes a meaningful life - an interview with psychiatrist Hermano Castro
Deep insights on identity, enthusiasm, and the most fulfilling life you're not living yet.
For a long time, I thought my interests were pulling in different directions. I cultivated, with equal love, two publications here on Substack.
One, quite introspective, I write personal essays reflecting on the lessons and discoveries I had so far on the journey of creating a meaningful life. The other, on the contrary, is very much outward focused, I write to help you create a personal brand, a body of work on the internet, express yourself, and find your unique angle.
But today, I found the point where both converge.
I realized that they were never conflicting, they were just different angles of one clear exploration: How self-expression influences the shaping of a meaningful life.
And to deepen this exploration, I invited Dr. Hermano Castro, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and content creator focusing on areas of human behavior and relationships, to help us answer questions, and make connections that were still vague for me.
I have followed Dr. Castro’s work for many years, which has helped me so much along my journey. He also published the book Communicating Like an Adult — one I almost begged him to translate into English. I’ve never found a book quite as helpful and practical on self-expression and communication.
We talked for a little over one hour, touching on topics like identity, purpose, personal opinions, relationships, and so on. Trimming his insights for a written piece was one of the hardest jobs I ever had. I did my best and my recommendation is: grab a good cup of tea, and set aside 20-30 minutes to read the full interview. It’s worth every line of it. He left me 🤯 the entire time.
But, just in case you want to explore around, or go straight to your area of interest, I broke down the interview into four parts:
After reading this, you won't see yourself the same way. Now, enjoy! And let me know what part resonates the most with you!!
Part 1 — What it means to live a meaningful life and what’s the role of self-expression in it?
(1) Nathalia: The theme of the interview is how self-expression influences the creation of a meaningful life. My first question for you is: what would be your definition—your view—of what a meaningful life is?
Hermano Castro: This is an excellent question, because I always say that the definition of words matters. Sometimes we use words without reflecting on what they mean.
When someone says “I want to live a life with purpose, a meaningful life”, we have to start from this person’s understanding of what that means. Otherwise, how will you know whether you’re living it or not? We need to define the starting point.
And I like to point out that a meaningful life is much more a feeling than a concept. If I ask someone, “Do you live a meaningful life?”, they can feel whether they do or don’t.
“Yes, I feel my life is meaningful.” They don’t necessarily know how to explain what makes it meaningful, but they can feel it. So the first point is that meaning—this idea of meaning—is a feeling to be accessed, with many individual and subjective nuances.
If I put it more practically, I like to think that a meaningful life is one in which I understand there are goals to pursue—goals with value and meaning—and I understand that I’m able to walk that path. I can advance on that path at my own pace, as I enjoy moving through it.
So, in other words: I’m living a meaningful life when I’m moving toward goals I consider valuable, while I enjoy the path, and gradually feel I’m moving closer to what I desire.
If I don’t know what goals I’m moving toward, or if I set them but I don’t even know if they have value or meaning to me, it will result in you setting goals while feeling stuck.
You won’t be able to progress and you won’t know why. You will probably fall into that abyss of feeling that life has no meaning, or it does have meaning but you can’t reach it.
(2) Nathalia: When you talk about setting goals, connected to the idea of purpose, I’m curious where these goals come from? What should one look for to become aware of them? Is it something we find or is it something we develop?
Hermano Castro: We can think that our life is made up of different dimensions. When we think about goals to pursue, we can think of it through these dimensions: interpersonal life, intrapersonal life, professional life, family life, hobbies, material goods, spiritual life, community life, etc.
So, when someone says “I want to improve my social life”, we have to be clear on what this means: you want to improve it in what way? Where are you now and where do you want to get to?
The same thing when people say “I want to improve my love life.” Ok, but how?
“I want to improve my family life, my material life, my intrapersonal life, my spiritual life, my community life, my professional life.” From each dimension, we already have a broad range of possibilities. But it’s not necessarily clear what I want to achieve in each dimension or why I’d like to achieve that.
And that brings us to a more philosophical concept I find fascinating from analytical psychology—Carl Jung, for example—who brings a wonderful concept worth sitting with called circumambulation.
Here’s what’s interesting, Nathalia: if you notice, we don’t choose our interests; in a certain way, they choose us.
For example: when you say “I love country music.” You didn’t decide to like it by your own free will. One day a rock song played and you didn’t like it, a jazz song played and you didn’t like it either. Then a country song played and you liked it. Why? Who knows.
We can try to explain, but it remains mysterious.
Our interests reveal themselves to us. What we find meaningful in life is more perceived than decided.
So, you might say, “I want to improve my professional life; I want to be a lawyer.” What exactly makes you want that? What do you feel when you imagine yourself as a lawyer? How does it move you or not move you?
The answer to the question “How can I find my purpose, or goals that feel meaningful?” is to identify what moves you, what calls you, what elicits your impulse and enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is a word I love. If you look at its etymology, it means “God within”, a feeling of fervor toward something you don’t choose to feel; you’re taken by it.
At the same time, this requires connection with yourself, because you have to perceive what happens inside you when you face these possibilities. And often we are disconnected, looking to see whether others will like it, whether we’ll be approved, whether someone will get mad, rather than noticing what’s happening inside of us.
In summary: we can think about different dimensions of life and identify the “track” of enthusiasm in each one—where I am now and where I’m being called to.
From that calling, I can refine and shape my next step. I don’t have to be impulsive: “My enthusiasm tells me to drop everything and backpack.” You could do that, and sometimes it’s exactly what you need. But you can also use discernment, thinking about a life project that makes sense given your reality, context, and enthusiasm.
Those are good guides to find purpose. What do you think?
(3) Nathalia: Fascinating. I’ve never thought of it that way. Now that we covered the definition of what a meaningful life is, I’m curious if for you communication and self-expression are synonyms or different things?
Hermano Castro: They can be synonyms in some contexts. Communication means bringing information into the world, to materialize what is inside you and to externalize it in a comprehensible way.
This intersects with expression. To express means placing yourself on the stage of life. Life is happening; and you decide whether you want to participate in it or not.
To express is, in a sense, to communicate your identity—who you are. In that sense, yes, they can be synonyms.
(4) Nathalia: Why does having an opinion/a point of view contribute to a more meaningful life? Does that conclusion make sense?
Hermano Castro: Yes, at some level. Even if that opinion is built on faulty ground, self-expression doesn’t necessarily mean saying or doing things the “correct way”; it means participating.
We can also participate in life by making mistakes, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Having an opinion is communicating to the world what you constructed from what you lived. You had experiences, gathered information, and synthesized: “This is how I understand what’s happening.”
That synthesis you concluded can have many faults in it, and that’s fine if you’re open to being challenged. Ideally someone, in good faith, can point out your gaps of perception and understanding, and from there you can form a better opinion.
The alternative is: If I never express an opinion, I’m not formulating a worldview, maybe because I’m distracted or afraid to express. The consequence is that other people won’t know how I see the world, which makes it harder to interact with me. It can even make it harder to feel connected or compatible.
At the same time, we can fall into the trap of thinking we must have an opinion about everything. You don’t necessarily need to. You can say: “In my view, I don’t have enough information to go deeper.” That is also an opinion, it tells others something about your identity and what you’re interested in or not.
Different people will react differently to your opinion of not wanting to add to a topic, some will try to teach you, some won’t engage with you, others will listen and identify with you. What you express in the world will shape how other people will interact with you and at what level of interaction that engagement will take place.
(5) Nathalia: You talk about expressing opinions as if expressing one’s identity. What is identity in this context?
Hermano Castro: Opinions are more volatile than identity. You can change your opinion instantly with new facts.
But sometimes for some people, changing an opinion would also mean changing a relevant part of one’s identity, which is why people try to resist it. People who experience this make the mistake of thinking that an opinion represents the totality of their identity.
Generally speaking, our identity is one of the mental aspects that we dedicate the most effort to defend and protect.
One definition I find fascinating is: identity is the set of emotionally relevant experiences through which you narrate your individual story.
If I ask “Nathalia, who are you?”, you’ll narrate facts: I’m from Brazil, I work with communication, I’m the daughter of... etc. You won’t tell me “I’m someone who ate eggs for breakfast or watched cat memes in bed”, because for you, those aren’t emotionally relevant.
We experience the world through the frame of a narrative. What composes this narrative are the emotionally relevant experiences we have. That set forms your identity.
Taking this concept a little further: identity is the role you believe you play on life’s stage. How did you decide to take on that role? Through the emotionally relevant experiences you gathered throughout your life.
That’s why it’s important to tie purpose to enthusiasm: enthusiasm is a strong emotion.
If you do things only because others told you, it may not be incorporated as deeply as when it’s connected to your desire. The more you have emotionally relevant experiences in different dimensions, the more solid your sense of identity becomes.
There’s a trap that can result in a weak sense of identity, which is when we build our sense of identity from intense emotions like arguing, fighting, or proving ourselves right. If that’s all someone has as their identity, it will be very hard to change this, because this person will end up concluding that if they lose that, they are left with nothing else that makes them feel relevant.
So they defend opinions fiercely because they confuse “any opinion” with “my whole identity”.
(6) Nathalia: If I feel I’m not living a meaningful life, could it be because my identity/narrative doesn’t open doors for that? Is it possible to change one’s identity to connect to a deeper sense of meaning?
Hermano Castro: Yes. We do it all the time, not necessarily consciously.
Many people grow up as projects of their parents or society. They don’t identify with it and don’t feel emotionally relevant experiences through it.
Then they realize other experiences would make them feel more connected, and they move toward them.
Like someone who was supposed to be the family doctor but, in the middle of medical school, they realize that music is what feels meaningful for them, and they leave medical school and go in pursuit of music.
So their identity shifts from “family’s doctor project” to “musician living a creative life.”
We are constantly reconfiguring our identity throughout life as a whole, through each moment we live, based on the experiences that are presented to us by life.
(7) Nathalia: And what if someone feels like they lack purpose and don’t know what path to explore moving forward? How can someone decide what experiences to explore when these experiences are not being spontaneously presented in their lives?
Hermano Castro: Perfect. This is common in the clinical practice. A patient arrives at their 20s, 30s, or 40s saying: “I’m lost… I don’t know what to do... I have no purpose.”
The first inevitable step is to get to know yourself, because before deciding where you want to go, we will identify where you are now and why you’re in this place.
If you don’t know where to go, why is that? What happened in your life that prevented your path from being revealed?
Sometimes you lived a life where no one was interested in your interests; no one noticed your signals when you were drumming on the table and thought “well, maybe he’s into percussion.” There was never a person who noticed that you hated leaving the house, but whenever it was to go out to nature, you loved it.
On the other hand, we could have lived a life where we were restrained. Whenever you were drumming on the table, someone told you to stop it. Or whenever you were excited about nature, they told you it was nonsense, and pushed you in another direction.
That’s how you disconnect from your interests and focus on what others want. You lose the ability to validate your own interests.
So first we understand: what kind of life did you live? What interests showed up? What was suppressed? What paths were you directed toward? What were your doubts and existential dramas? All of that points to your interests.
In essence, you need to identify those interests because they will need pursuing, at least on some level.
So we revisit the person’s life story and map it. Instead of skipping ahead to “find purpose,” we first understand the deep reasons you haven’t found it yet.
One step at a time.
Nathalia: I love how clearly you laid out stages so people can locate themselves on the path.
Hermano Castro: Yes. We sometimes think of self-knowledge as something navel-gazing, but it has practical utility: to orient you. When you know yourself, you know which directions interest you more or less, where you have aptitude or limits. Self-knowledge sharpens your decision-making.
(8) Nathalia: Usually when people say they want to communicate better, they are advised to seek a public speaking course, or a writing course, or any way that helps them with articulation. What would be your advice for someone who wants to develop their communication and self-expression skills both in personal relationships and at work, or any other sphere?
Hermano Castro: That’s a great question. Communication is a tool, a tool for connection. That’s the purpose of communication.
The better I communicate, the better I express what’s inside me so others can understand clearly who I am and what I want. So, before starting a speaking course, start with your goal: what do you want to communicate, aiming at what goal? What are you envisioning?
In my book ‘Communicate like an adult’ I define the first pillar of communication as defining your goal or intention.
If I want to communicate better with you, I need to know: ****what I want you to know? With what intention? How would I like you to act based on that? If I don’t know the answer to this, I can have the most sophisticated vocabulary or articulation, but I won’t necessarily connect with you.
To connect with you, it helps to be connected with myself. I know who I am, what I want, what I prefer, what could help me or harm me. Then when I approach you for a conversation I take all that I know about myself and try to put it into comprehensible words.
If I don’t know who I am and what I want, it’s common to find myself in the situations we hear about in romantic relationships when we hear “You have to improve your communication”.
Let’s say I don’t like that my girlfriend acts in a certain way. So I need to improve my communication with her.
But if I don’t know what a different way I’d prefer her to act looks like, in what way does her current behavior bother me? If I don’t know, then we have to step back, and first understand myself.
Sometimes someone connected to themselves can help you communicate—ideally that would happen in family systems, but often it doesn’t.
Still, we can catch up and develop this skill ourselves.
Part 2 — Communication & Relationships
(9) Nathalia: We all hear that to improve our relationships and conflicts, we need to improve our communication. I think that there are people, like me, who believe they communicate well, but I also believe that we all have blind spots about our own capabilities and skills. What question would you ask me that would reveal my real ability to communicate well right now?
Hermano Castro: Communication is a tool for connection. If you want to know how well you communicate, evaluate how connected you feel to other people.
If you say “I communicate very well.” I ask you: “Do you feel you have good relationships?”. If not, there are two possibilities:
You’re in a place surrounded by people who truly don’t know how to connect, and you may be a victim for being surrounded by them; or
You may not know how to connect with others.
Connection takes two people. You might be able to communicate really well, but if the other person is at an initial level, there’s a limit to what’s in your control.
After I launched my book How to communicate like an adult, I started receiving messages from people like: “I did everything you recommended in your book but my partner is still difficult.” Communication isn’t a tool of control, that would be manipulation.
Even if you communicate clearly, the other person may have a “dirty lens.” Your message may be clear, but their perception may not be clear. So you can recognize: “Within what’s my responsibility, I communicated well, even if they may not be able to see clearly.” You can invite them to wipe their lens clean, but you can’t force them to see your side or communicate at the same level.
So, being aware of this, we can avoid falling into some traps of taking on responsibilities and guilt that aren’t ours. Because maybe the other person isn’t so open or willing to connect with you at the same level you are.
When we look at the collective, we can have a better idea of our own capacity for communicating well: if you can’t connect with anyone, maybe it’s not only a matter of skill; it may be your connection with yourself.
It’s easier to connect with others when you’re connected with yourself.
(10) Nathalia: There’s a biblical saying “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you”. In your perspective, what is the impact of not expressing ourselves fully in a romantic partnership, or in our friendships, both for the one who doesn’t express and for the relationship in itself?
Hermano: We could do an entire interview on that. Using the biblical metaphor: there are sins of commission and sins of omission. We often underestimate omission.
You can be wise in what you express, you don’t need to express everything impulsively, because that would be indistinguishable from a 2-year-old child.
You can be wise in your communication when you understand what would work best to connect with the other person, while having clarity on what goal you’re aiming for with what you want to communicate.
Omitting can be dangerous because people think it maintains peace. Sometimes it does, if it’s something trivial you can truly let go. But sometimes it’s relevant, and if you don’t communicate it, it keeps circling in your head and tormenting you.
Sometimes, it’s important information about who you are or how you feel, and you’re depriving the other person of knowing that. And when you do so, you are also depriving yourself of discovering who they are in response to what you have to share with them.
We get to know each other not only by what we reveal to others about us, but also by observing what their reaction is to what’s revealed to them.
For example, let’s say you made a mistake and you don’t want to communicate it because the other person might react badly. Assuming so, it’s not like they wouldn’t be that person anymore just because you omitted this information from them. They will continue to be a person that reacts badly whenever they learn about a mistake you made.
If you know how they will react in the face of this, you will also discover if they are open to doing something to change this inadequate behavior. And with this information, you can decide what level of bond you want to cultivate with this person.
Another point is that omission breeds resentment, and the more resentment is built, the more disconnection happens between people.
Sometimes when we express ourselves we can generate some conflict indeed, and the problem is that people think that conflict is something horrible to happen. Conflict is uncomfortable in the short term, but avoiding it can become a bigger debt later. Would you rather experience X discomfort now vs. 10x discomfort in the future?
There’s no right or wrong, but knowing now that this is how things work, you can decide for yourself.
(11) Nathalia: So communication is both a tool to express and understand who we are, and to understand who the other person is based on how they receive that information.
Hermano: Exactly. And I like to reinforce this to my patients so we don’t fall into the trap of thinking “if I communicate really well, everything in my life will be perfect”, “If I communicate really well, the other person will always be nice and respectful to me”. This is not necessarily true, and not necessarily bad.
Sometimes the other person can respond angrily to me because the way I communicate is actually bad, and I didn’t realize I was disrespectful because I’m used to speaking in this certain way.
But if I know that I worked on my communication skills, and I know how to reach out to you respectfully, and still you respond to me in an aggressive way, this is valuable information about who you are that is being revealed to me: that you are aggressive with me even though I addressed you respectfully.
I can consider whether this happened because you’re feeling overwhelmed in this specific moment? Maybe that’s something happening in your life that stressed you out? Or is this a pattern that keeps showing up no matter the circumstances?
So, I can propose another conversation: “I notice that when I make requests, you react aggressively. Is there something going on?” And I will learn more about the context of your response. That’s fostering connection.
A true connection needs to be based on truth.
Part 3 — Work
(12) Nathalia: In your experience, do you notice if there is a connection between having a hard time positioning yourself professionally, and also in our personal lives, in our relationships? Or are these different things?
Hermano Castro: No, they usually overlap in most aspects, and it relates to one’s personality structure.
The most validated personality theory today is the Big Five. The big five refers to the five factors that form our personality, and each one varies from 0 to 100%.
Each one of us will show a certain percentage for each factor. None of them is right or wrong. But each one presents advantages and disadvantages depending on the level you possess for each.
One factor is agreeableness, which means how much a person tends to consider the other’s problem as their own, and how much tendency they have to become submissive to others to avoid causing pain.
So, for example: Someone who has high levels of agreeableness, they may be very polite, and may fear being assertive because they don’t want to upset the other person.
On the other hand, when someone has low levels of agreeableness, they will have a tendency to be more competitive/direct, and may fall into being harsh and less empathetic.
There’s also a difference between genders, for both biological and sociocultural reasons. Studies have shown that women have a tendency to present higher levels of agreeableness when compared to men in general.
Someone who has a high-agreeableness trait might be afraid to be assertive because they worry that it will bother the other person, or upset them. And if this happens, the discomfort is so great that they tend to avoid it.
So, using this example in the clinical practice, when we identify these traits, we work on ways to help them express themselves in a more assertive way, developing a sense of self-protection because they usually struggle to negotiate on their own behalf.
The other side of it is not great either. People with low-agreeableness have a tendency to be more assertive and straightforward, but they will have to learn compassion and tact in how they express themselves if they want to connect better with others.
Our personality greatly influences our experience of situations, for example: if you put a high-agreeableness person in HR firing people, they might burn out quickly. A low-agreeableness person might thrive. Neither is right or wrong, it’s about fit.
(13) Nathalia: A common struggle that people share with me is that they can execute their work well but can’t talk about it or articulate their perspective. Do you have any insight on this gap?
Hermano Castro: Ok, so these are different skills. Just because I know how to do something well doesn’t mean I know how to communicate it well. Even on a neurological level, they happen in different areas of the brain. A great example of this is when we’re studying languages. Just because you understand a language well doesn’t mean you can speak it properly.
These are different functions. So, if one of these functions, for example the communication one, is not well developed in you, you can start training it. Instead of focusing on doing more of it, which won’t help in the communication aspect.
You have to set the right goal to work toward according to the area you want to develop.
(14) Nathalia: Nowadays, for autonomous professionals/entrepreneurs, communication becomes practically a business requirement due to the social media marketing aspect of growing a business or practice. How can someone who struggles with this start communicating without feeling like they’re “performing”? This is another struggle I hear a lot too, when people say they don’t feel like themselves. What’s your view on this?
Hermano Castro: Ok, there are many nuances here. Let’s explore the different layers. Performance isn’t necessarily bad. Right now I’m performing, but I’m performing appropriately for the context. If you’re going to show up in social media, you will perform at some level.
Performing doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not being authentic, this is a trap we may fall into at times. For example, I like to use this metaphor to reflect on this: Water has three different states. It can be solid, liquid, or gas. And whatever state it is, it is still water.
The same applies to us. When I’m in a clinical session, I’m Hermano, the psychiatrist. Does this mean that I’m not being myself? No. I’m performing my psychiatrist facet authentic to the context.
I’m not Hermano the psychiatrist when I’m with my girlfriend or around my family, unless they need me to perform some aspect of my work. And even under this performance, I will still be authentic to myself.
Authenticity means to be connected with your essence.
For example, if you’re naturally shy or reserved but you force yourself to be a loud comedian online, you would be acting in dissonance with your essence.
It doesn’t mean that you cannot do that, but it means that doing so will feel heavy and uncomfortable.
Considering that communication is a tool for connection, and social media, in theory, exist to connect us to others, a good strategy then is to follow authenticity: show a facet that’s authentic to you so the right people can resonate. At some level, this helps people to identify with you.
If you offer people a performance that’s not authentic to you, you will end up attracting people who don’t really connect with you.
But back to the question, you don’t need to be on social media if you don’t want. It definitely helps as a tool to promote your work in the times we live in. But then you have to ask yourself: what is your goal? Why are you doing social media? To get more clients? To build partnerships? To become known? Once you have this defined, then you will understand what you want to express, and the more authentically you do so, the better you can position yourself, and the more connection you create.
Being authentic doesn’t mean oversharing. It means expressing something essential in a true way that enables connection.
Entrepreneurship becomes easier the more you know yourself because you will shape your business and make choices that match your personal traits and characteristics.
Part 4 — Internet
(15) Nathalia: I have followed you on Instagram for many years, where you always seem to have a consistent presence. What motivated you to start communicating on social media?
Hermano Castro: That’s an interesting question. I used to create content in a more informal way for a while, but I started taking my account seriously when I started psychiatry residency, when I was graduating as a psychiatrist. My main goal was to attract patients so I could launch my own private practice. But the reason why I think I’ve been consistent with it is because I always wanted to be a psychiatrist since I was 14 years old. I love this profession. And when I started the residency I was so excited about it, I wanted to learn everything there was to learn and my hobby was studying psychiatry.
I would devour books and get excited about what I learned. And I noticed “Nobody talks about this, I want to talk more about it.” So, I started making videos and it became like a study diary: I recorded connections I discovered and made videos about them.
In my perspective, the reason why I started creating this connection with my audience was because something about my enthusiasm resonated with them. It wasn’t something costly to me, or heavy, because it was an outlet for my own expression: I wanted to put reflections somewhere, organize my thinking, leave the learning recorded, and see how it landed.
I learned something almost daily and shared it, and it became a pleasure, especially because it worked.
(16) Nathalia: Did you ever worry about what people would think? Did you have any insecurities that many people feel when expressing themselves online, or did it always come from a place of expressing your enthusiasm?
Hermano Castro: Oh yeah, it always comes up. This also relates to some deeper aspects of personality. For example, I have low agreeableness, so much so that I became famous for my series “Loving slaps from the psychiatrist” (literal translation), where I reveal the real motivation or dynamic behind people’s messy situations they bring to me without sugarcoating it or protecting their feelings.
Sometimes I know that some topics will create controversy, and sometimes I even want that, I want to see what happens. I love it (laughs).
But sometimes it also becomes exhausting, because it’s common that people misunderstand you online. And even though sometimes I already expect to be misunderstood, sometimes I’m really surprised by how badly people misread things. But it’s part of the game. Even if you are super strategic, and approach any topic in the softest way possible, you still run the risk of being misunderstood at some level.
Depending on the personality, this can hit one person harder than it hits others. But this is something that is within your control. You can adjust the rhythm, how you handle it, and respect your limits.
And this goes back to knowing yourself.
(17) Nathalia: Do you think that social media sometimes create an illusion of self-expression? In the sense that people think they’re expressing themselves but are actually performing an edited version of what others expect?
Hermano Castro: It’s very tempting to fall into that trap, and it has a lot to do with your goals. What is the reason why I’m expressing myself through social media? Sometimes, you might have a goal you haven’t fully admitted to yourself yet — that you’re actually looking for mass approval.
Then you may express opinions that aren’t yours, because you saw they get praise. You might reaffirm other people or ideas because it’s what’s trendy even though you don’t really resonate with that. Or you might criticize something or someone who doesn’t actually hurt your values because the online masses are more likely to validate.
And it might even feel rewarding in the short term, but it’s not sustainable. Life happens in the long term. Eventually the mask falls, you contradict yourself, something true is revealed, and the contradiction is exposed.
People hate discovering they were deceived.
So, if you have the main goal of being approved by others, no matter what you’re doing or saying, not only in social media, but in life as a whole, it doesn’t work well as a long term plan. For example, I might pretend that I don’t like rock music so you like me, and in the short term you actually do, and I will feel that people in general like me for this. But then one day you catch me listening to rock music, and all our relationship was built on the fact that we didn’t like rock music. So now, that relationship is doomed.
A better goal, that we should cultivate, is to reveal who we truly are. Your authenticity will attract people who genuinely like you.
And even if you hold a belief that people would never like you for who you truly are, I usually bring the counterpoint of: it’s impossible to be hated by the whole world population. Even the maniacal serial killers receive letters from fans saying how much they love them.
There are always going to be people who will resonate with you, and others who won’t. You need to discover who they are, and to do so, you need to reveal who you are in truth.
I’m not saying this out of moralism, but from my clinical experience. I’ve seen hundreds of people who tried to employ these strategies, and all went wrong eventually.
(18) Nathalia: Ok, so here’s my last question: with AI being the “hot topic” of the moment, people who want to express themselves at times in their relationships, work, or online, they turn to AI first asking variations of the question “How do I say this?” or in the worst cases even “What do I say?”. We’re creating a habit of putting a machine between us and our communication. What’s your view on this? Is it ok? Does it harm our ability to express ourselves?
Hermano Castro: The main question here is: since we observed that this is happening. What is the cause that is leading this habit to take place?
I see this as a symptom of a generation that feels disoriented. “I didn’t learn to communicate well, I need to do so in this exact moment, but I don’t know how. Who can help?”
Sometimes you never even learned to ask for help, and the AI is there, it welcomes you, it reassures you always, it’s private (in theory), so you seek help.
I don’t see it as necessarily a problem if you’re using it as a tool for orientation and refinement. For example: “I want to decline an invitation. I was going to say: ‘I don’t want to go.’” AI might help you phrase it more politely like “Thank you so much for the invite, but I’m not available to go.” That can be healthy and teach you patterns. Now you understand how to decline other invitations in the future.
What I see as extremely problematic is when people use AI to delegate decisions. Like “Hey ChatGPT, that person invited me to go out. Should I go?”. When you do this, you are handing over the protagonist role of your life to an algorithmic machine.
There’s even the trend of “ChatGPT tarot” becoming an oracle. “ChatGPT, draw a tarot card for me so I know if you should meet that person or not.
Anytime we use technology to delegate decisions, it becomes a problem.
This is part of being human, it’s not like this never happened before. People try to do this with therapists all the time “Should I end my relationship?” If I answer this question for you, I’m robbing you of your life’s purpose.
If I tell you “yes, and it goes wrong, you will blame me; if it goes right, you don’t get the credit, it’s all because you followed what I told you to do.
So, the worst thing you can do is to delegate decisions, because anytime you do so, you undermine your own satisfaction. You will never give yourself the right merit for living a satisfying life, it will always be because someone else told you so. And that’s very sad.
So, whenever we are talking about AI, oracles, or people, it isn’t harmful if you’re using it as a tool, the real problem is when you delegate the power of deciding over your own life.
What did you think of the interview?? I would love to know what stood out for you!
Resources & Support
Dr. Hermano Castro's book Communicate like an Adult (Portuguese version).
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I loved it! It spoke to so many of the issues I have with being online, expressing myself, AI. I found the section about finding purpose as something driven by enthusiasm particularly interesting. Thank you so much for sharing!
Great interview! Love the amount of times we are challenged to look at the ‘why’ behind our actions and decisions.