if we stopped performing

Who would we be

if we stopped performing?

Most of us are performing, most of the time. And what I mean by that, is that we are not behaving in a completely natural way. Our actions are largely driven by what we feel we are meant to be doing, what we feel other people expect of us.

And this involves almost every aspect of our life – at least those aspects that are to do with social interaction of one sort or another. For example, I tend to wear clothes. For me, that is a performance. If I were completely on my own, on a little island somewhere, I would simply be naked all the time. That, for me, would be the natural state. But out of some sense of needing to conform with society, to perform, I put on some clothes.

And even the type of clothes I wear, carry an aspect of performance. If I were in an important business meeting, perhaps I would wear a suit and tie. If I were meeting others at a hippie festival, I would wear clothes like the other people present, and so on. It is a performance.

And my question today is, who would we be, if we were to stop performing? What would be left if I were to strip that layer of performance away from my behaviour, from my psychology? Because it is unclear who I am without all these props, like the clothing. And the props are not just material things. They include the way I behave, the way I speak.

It is the same for each of us. We are acting. We are actors on a stage. And it is easy to see in oneself, that in a different social context, our behaviour suddenly changes completely, to fit in with what we feel is appropriate in that context. And that appropriateness has to do with the other people: what we believe they expect from us in the situation.

It's a sort of social contract. But it's also a big performance – a play being performed on a stage. And because of that, it is fake. Utterly fake. And that fakeness, in the end, leaves every one of us feeling, deep down, unfulfilled, false, pretentious; each one of us feeling that imposter syndrome, in almost every aspect of our life.

So let's come back to the question, who are we without that performance? One thing is clear: that without all those social rules to guide our behaviour, everything feels rather unpredictable, and therefore a little bit scary. Without the performance aspect, I don't know in advance how I'm going to behave. I don't know what I will say. I don't know who I will appear to be to the other people. And of course, I don't know how they're going to react to whatever comes out of me.

It feels like a big gamble. It's a step into the unknown – not just in relation to the other people, but unknown in relation to oneself.

If we define ourselves by our behaviours, then ripping the performance out of our life is like tearing up one's identity. And that's what most of us are too afraid to do. And that's a pity. It's showing a great lack of trust in life, in existence. And that lack of trust constrains us.

We have put ourself in a little box and labelled it in various ways. And that box is our cage. It might be a gilded cage: perhaps I'm presenting myself as somebody very important and capable. But it is still a cage.

And true fulfilment comes not through this performance. It comes moment to moment, when we are living authentically. And that authenticity is really anarchy, in the true sense of that word: not living from rules and regulations, but living spontaneously. And ultimately, what drives us in the moment, is existence. You could call it divine will, manifesting moment to moment, completely fresh and unknowable in advance.

So who are we without that performance? We cannot say; we cannot know, in the usual sense of knowing. But we can live it. We can be bold and step into that space of a profound trust in life, in existence, in the divine. That can be the source of our every moment, our every action in the moment, of who we are.

Are we bold enough? Are we courageous enough to allow that? I hope so.