Roles and Face

The advice “be yourself” assumes there is one final version stored inside a person, and that presenting it honestly to the world is enough. Society demands this authenticity and punishes it at the same time, if the chosen version does not suit the situation.

In practice we behave differently with a child, a boss, a friend, a stranger and someone who has just been given bad news. That is not necessarily hypocrisy. Social roles help take account of the situation and of other people’s needs.

The problem arises when the role cannot be taken off.

A person constantly performs confidence, indifference, success, competence, cheerfulness and toughness.

The people around start reacting to the character. Then it has to be maintained, so as not to lose the place obtained by precisely that image.

A role is useful as a working instrument. It is dangerous as the only available way to exist.

The good question is not “am I being real right now?” but:

Can I tell the truth here about things that matter?

Can I admit ignorance, fear or disagreement?

Do I have to control the impression constantly?

Will the relationship survive if the image changes a little?

Not everyone is entitled to full access to our inner life. Sincerity does not require telling everything to everyone.

All the same, a setting where only the character is allowed to exist becomes uncomfortable housing over time.

A role fuses with a face imperceptibly and for entirely sensible reasons. A man was promoted because he always knows the answer. From then on he knows the answer in every meeting, including on things he does not understand: the sentence “I don’t know, I need to look into it” now costs more than it did before the promotion. Two years later he has a team that brings him no bad news and an image that has to be maintained around the clock.

The price of a role is measured not in sincerity but in the number of topics that cannot be discussed. When such topics outnumber the discussable ones, the role has stopped being an instrument and become housing — cramped and windowless.