watching yourself play a role

post here when you realize, possibly in mock-horror, that the quality of anything you do is the sensibility of the role you're playing!

Every day. Every day at my job. Frequently in the middle of conversations. I feel like a disembodied observer watching tv, detached from the mind in my body that is thinking and feeling things.

I think this is partly bc I never expected to have this job and still frequently can't believe I'm doing it, and also that a large part of my work is acting out an emotional state for others in order to influence their behavior. It's kind of nuts.

Oh all of that. Well put!

holy shit, me too! cosign all of that. xp

sartre's waiter to thread?

matt have u read (i think u might like it)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51p5kzV%2B%2B4L.jpg

has anyone in neuropsychology combined some of goffman's insights with a theory of consciousness (or the rudiments thereof)? that would seem to be a promising combination...

i guess i mean theory of consciousness/theory of self

i mean goffman is himself advancing a theory of self, i guess i mean a theory of self informed by better understanding of both the brain and infant behavior.

i haven't read that goffman book yet but i ought to, it seems very relevant to this kind of thing. 'even the greatest stars find themselves in the looking glass'. do we only 'find' our role or can we 'choose' it? etc.

everything feels so scripted sometimes! "why am i saying this?" oh right, to make social sense in a given situation, to placate my anxiety about something not making sense. i will follow x or y or z. after a while the paths become familiar or take shapes that i recognize, i can follow along and predict them to a certain extent, but rather than giving me more agency it just makes me feel more colored-in.

anyway, i sort of wanted this to be about descriptions of the roles you find yourself playing but i'm afraid i don't have anything to contribute right now other than generalized angst.

I was installing window shades in my daughter's room this past weekend and thought to myself I am the fakest of dads followed immediately by wait every dad is kind of faking it all the time aren't they

I've never felt this disengaged before, I think because I've kind of made it my thing to hunker down in my self and refuse to budge--to be "very much myself" or whatever. But now some life changes got me to this place where I'm doing work I never imagined existed and doing around and over the heads of and with the cooperation of all these people who don't necessarily share my values, and it's just acting and shut mouth so much of the time. Oh and lots of public speaking, and sometimes reporting to people who don't necessarily like me. So it's all pressure, all the time. I wonder sometimes if it's making me a bit weird but I figure only time will tell, and I don't want to STOP, so....

i sort of wanted this to be about descriptions of the roles you find yourself playing

I have noticed that when I get together with my siblings as a group (there's 5 of us) , we all tend to fall into long-established roles even if we haven't seen each other for a couple of years.

Pretty much everyone is kind of faking it all the time. That's been a slowly-dawning realization as I've grown older. Aside from people who are experts in a particular field, nobody really knows what the fuck they're doing, and even those experts are only experts within their area of expertise. Human endeavor is a shaky scaffolding that only continues to stand because we collectively agree that the things we do/think/make/believe/say/love have meaning. So, yeah, everything outside of eating and fucking and shitting is performance.

(But just so I'm clear, that subjective investment in meaning and in those varying levels of performance are a large part of what make humanity beautiful to me.)

Work is where I probably perform the least, inasmuch as, while it's deeply important to me that I do a job that I'm being paid for well, I don't give a shit about my job/company/field and I don't really put any effort into convincing people otherwise.

p much my entire life, diff roles for different situations, i suppose work is the biggest one, the game face combined with clowning on which i've built the most successful part of my life.

since i started actually doing acting rather than just daydreaming constantly with no outlet, i find myself drifting into imagined scenarios, plays which may or may not be written, stories, the minds of people i see around me, some world to do with whatever music i'm listening to, or combinations of these. the weather, the time of day, the environment all play a part too.

i think if i didn't have fixed roles for home/work/friends/family i would cease to exist at all.

and yeah, perhaps this is true for everyone.

I was installing window shades in my daughter's room this past weekend and thought to myself I am the fakest of dads followed immediately by wait every dad is kind of faking it all the time aren't they

Yeah, for me parenting has been the ultimate in consciously taking on a role and feeling like I'm trying to get away with something.

this is a cliche but more and more i find myself thinking 'why did i say that? my DAD says that and i HATE it when he says it'

there's playing a role at work, with your friends, family, in public, and by yourself. i think it might be impossible to avoid playing at least one role. personally, i think the last time i was between roles was probably in the womb

related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

everything outside of eating and fucking and shitting is performance.

then i guess you haven't seen me shit

YouTube link plz

everything outside of eating and fucking and shitting is performance.

but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_Actionism

One time I ordered a book on Duchamp from Forced Exposure and they sent me a coffee table hardback on Vienna Actionism. Mind blown.

In my opinion / experience, everyone does this much of the time, especially at work but also in social situations pretty damn often. But it's not helpful at all to think of it as 'faking'; much better, I think, to consider it 'performing'. 'Playing a role' is a good description, too. But at work 'being professional' is another synonym, arguably.

Seems timely given Bowie's passing, as he was the best at this.

Actually thinking about it I'm not keen on 'playing a role' as that suggests you're not being 'your self', when in actual fact you may well be. You can totally perform as your self.

Pretty much everyone is kind of faking it all the time. That's been a slowly-dawning realization as I've grown older. Aside from people who are experts in a particular field, nobody really knows what the fuck they're doing, and even those experts are only experts within their area of expertise. Human endeavor is a shaky scaffolding that only continues to stand because we collectively agree that the things we do/think/make/believe/say/love have meaning.

yes to all this, I love it

(But just so I'm clear, that subjective investment in meaning and in those varying levels of performance are a large part of what make humanity beautiful to me.)

I can't stand Vegas, but the first time I was there, I was struck with incredible admiration for all the folks who work there, for more or less this reason, I think. Nevada even being fit for human habitation is mostly pretense.

One time I ordered a book on Duchamp from Forced Exposure and they sent me a coffee table hardback on Vienna Actionism. Mind blown.

hahaha I love this

If this stuff blows your mind, that is just how minds are. Minds tend to mistake whatever perspective they've habitually adopted as if it were some bedrock of truth, so that whenever they eventually shift perspectives it feels like an earthquake, although nothing about the universe has changed other than your mind.

To avoid getting all shook, it is a good practice to deliberately change perspectives on a regular basis. Meditation is helpful for this, but after a while you can do it easily enough anywhere and any time. It is playtime.

Or like watch a video of fractals. If you think you can handle it.

observing the observer

we collectively agree that the things we do/think/make/believe/say/love have meaning.

i would cosign except the lunchroom at work always has CNN on, so it appears the agreement has broken down.

the extent to which our personalities are a role that we play a always strikes me most when I have to code-switch in English, or when speaking a foreign language. The "real me" speaks in Glaswegian dialect and is jokey, informal, brash, and a little vulgar. Standard English me is more formal, reserved, and diffident, but also perhaps more thoughtful and considers what he says more. When speaking Spanish, badly, I'm quite flamboyant and gesticulate even more than usual.

that's a good lens to look at this through, thanks!

xp

yeah, i relate to this.

check this out

https://newrepublic.com/article/117485/multilinguals-have-multiple-personalities

after learning all of us have different personalities in different languages, it became difficult to choose what type of personality i wanted in japanese, because my girlfriend and her family prefer the osaka dialect. but most foreigners learn the tokyo dialect and are rather formal. i end up sounding like an easygoing, street-talking tokyoite.

an american said he can spot a canadian in los angeles by listening to who speaks in complete sentences.

i suppose this is true. it's difficult for me to feel very relaxed when speaking english in the us, because i usually make regional jokes with my friends back home. being in a foreign country forces you to be more conscious of how you speak. i've learnt my canadian english is just a lot more subtle and nuanced than i had previously thought.

it's strange hearing people's preconceived notions about us, though. one of them said it was because i'm so mellow and speak so slow that she was able to tell i'm canadian. i do think angelenos speak really fast and slur their speech often.

also, i feel like when you've reached a point where you're "observing" your self interact with others, you've become way too self-conscious. it feels really unnatural and somewhat dishonest.

(my apologies for the disjointed thoughts)

Totally agree with tombot on feeling like a fake dad, or rather a person who is performing acts of dadness.

The further realization occurred to me that not only are most contemporary parents performing it as a role - so were our parents. Probably theirs too. Perceiving how much my parents were completely unprepared fuckups, who were totally winging it, altered my view of my childhood.

i would cosign except the lunchroom at work always has CNN on, so it appears the agreement has broken down.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Friday, January 15, 2016

irl roffles

i lolled as well

playing roles is sometimes necessary and sometimes fun but always exhausting ime

i wish i could land the good roles

interestingly put

o.p. about watching not playing though

as you get older, you drop the roles more often at risk of pissing people off, so something to look forward to maybe. (or it could just be me)

not just you. I'm a lot less concerned about 'roles' now. that suits me fine. I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin by now.