Monthly Archives: August 2013

An Actor’s Perception of Reality: Behavior and Identity

Action!

You are someone else.  You communicate this with your behavior.  You act.  Sound.  Look.  Feel.  Smell.  Taste.  like someone else.  Your ability as an actor is judged by the extent to which you can hid your true being, and convince others of your alternative identity.

Cut!

You are back to “normal,” you are yourself again: the identity which was always yours is back.  Your identity was just temporarily hidden by the behavior you portrayed during the scene you acted in.

There is now a logical means for justifying a dissociation between identity and behavior.  A license for a confusing view of reality.

If I am behaviorally “mean” to you in one instance, I can say I was acting according to the environment I was in.  The meanness was an act, and not a part of my identity—I still claim to be a nice person.  If I play poorly today at tennis, I can explain it as a lack of proper preparation and warm up—environment variables—so that it does not affect my identity—as a good tennis player.

These reasonings are starting to mean less and less to me as I use them more and more.  If I “say” sleep is a priority, and then behave in such a way that shows sleep is a low priority, my claim that sleep is a priority seems to be false; and in fact IS false.  So for some things, behavior is truth.

But if I say I’m good at table tennis, then intentionally lose to someone, I am still good at table tennis.  So I have the skills, but chose not to use them.  In this case, the behavior is a lie.

One instance is not always true, neither is the other…arg, another logical truth shattered into logical ambiguity.

I thought I liked being depressed

I’ve spent most of my life feeling depressed, and so I’ve learned to savor and experience the “sweetness” of sorrow.  But the fact that I focus on the “sweetness” aspect of the depression means that I want to be positive and happy–otherwise I would be focusing on the pain of sorrow.  Learning to love the sweetness of sorrow is actually an example of making the most out of what you have–I had depression, so I tried to make the best of it.  Therefore, I was wrong to say that I liked being depressed–this subtle distinction was difficult for me to make, but I’m glad I figured it out!