My Innie vs My Outie: The War

I watched the mind-bending Severance series a few months ago. It wasn’t bad at all. I can’t remember who recommended it—most likely my sister.

Movies are one of the things my siblings and I bond over. We recommend them to each other like a relay of survival: If you suffered through it, I don’t have to. You suffer for all!

The Innie & The Outie

In Severance, there’s this concept of an "innie" and an "outie." Humans who agree to the procedure have their work selves separated from their non-work selves. When they step into the work elevator, something flips. Their “work self”—the innie—switches on.

The innie knows nothing about the outside world. No idea who their family is. No context. Just fluorescent lights, cubicles, and coworkers.

The outie, on the other hand, knows nothing about their work life. Once they leave the building, their work persona essentially disappears. They are back to their home selves. If they ran into a work colleague at the supermarket, they would not even recognize them.

The Dialogue

At some point, the main character’s outie needs to communicate with his innie. The process is exhausting. They send each other voice notes like two people in a long-distance relationship with terrible WiFi. At one point, they are basically screaming through recorded messages.

Why? Because they want different things. They both think the other one is unreasonable.

The outie wants to get his "dead wife" back.
The innie is in love with a coworker and wants to keep living that life.
And neither desire can exist without threatening the other.

If the innie helps the outie get his wife back, the outie would have no reason to return to work.
If the outie refuses to return to work, the innie loses his entire world.

It’s a mess of incentives, trust, sacrifice, and identity.

Do I Have an Innie and an Outie? 🤔

Sometimes I feel like I do.
A whole war happening inside my body.

My innie is my internal system. The strict one. The one running the operations.
My outie is the me that interfaces with the world. The vibes. The craving. The one that wants to be carefree.

My outie loves ice cream—salted caramel especially. She could chug a whole bowl and still ask for more.

My innie hates ice cream.
She punishes the outie every chance she gets: huge breakouts, painful pimples, angry red swellings. It's chaos.

So when I watched Severance, one of my first thoughts was: How can I communicate with my innie so she understands that ice cream is a guilty pleasure and she needs to stop throwing tantrums?

What would that conversation look like?

Outie: I love ice cream. It’s literally the best thing in the world.
Innie: It’s processed sugar. That nonsense is not good for you.
Outie: Must you be so strict? Please. YOLO.
Innie: I’m not going to be chill with you bringing that thing near me.
Outie: You’re selfish and rigid. No empathy. 😭
Innie: 🥱
Outie: What about once a week on Fridays? 🫣
Innie: …silence

A compromise?

There are things we both want.
When I decide I’m going to do something great; something genuinely exciting, my innie is hyped. I can code for hours and she won’t even whisper about food. I’ll be like, “Why am I not hungry?” and I can imagine her saying:

“We’re changing the world, please. Focus.”

But what about the things I want that she doesn’t want?
The external conflicts where I insist on having my way, even though I know she’ll be mad?

I have sticky notes on my desk with reminders about the "whys" and the "consequences."

They barely help.
Even when I resist a craving, I still have to deal with the craving. And where is my innie then? Nowhere! She is just relieved we did not bring the ice cream near her.

My Response To my Innie

I’ve noticed something interesting over the years though. When I’m aligned with my innie, we can do anything. We can change the world.
When we’re misaligned, one of us suffers. And when one of us is suffering, both of us are, inadvertently.

So when it comes to fulfillment, passion, and drive—the things that keep me alive, and by alive I don’t mean just existing—the things that make life more than a loop of waking up, doing things, and going back to sleep… those are the areas where I make sure we’re fully aligned.

But for the things my innie is unnecessarily rigid about, like salted caramel ice cream?

My response is:

“Ma’am, you’ll be all right.”

Until she decides to learn to enjoy the little things (in moderation), I’m living life with the slogan:

“Who’s a couple of pimples gonna hurt?” 🤪

Have a lovely weekend, amigo, and thank you for reading ❤️
By the way, the double cream in my fridge is calling my name… and my ice cream maker is ready for duty.