Everyone's acting, and that's okay

Letter to my younger self #10

Me with a bobblehead of myself that my Mom got me.

Yesterday an ancient interview of Marlon Brando popped up on my Youtube homepage. I opened it, watched all 6 minutes and 36 seconds of it, then had a full-on existential crisis.

Normally I use Youtube like a crack addict. I pop in to one video, watch for 5 seconds, pop on another video, watch for 10 seconds, and that’s it. I watched 6 minutes of an interview conducted in the 1970’s in solemn silence.

In the video, Marlon talked about how every one of us is an actor. He says:

“We couldn’t survive a second if we weren’t able to act. Acting is a survival mechanism, and it’s a social lubricant. And we act to save our lives, actually, every day. People lie constantly every day by not saying something that they think, or saying something that they don’t think, or showing something that they don’t feel.”

I watched Marlon Brando make Dick Cavett squirm in his chair for 6 minutes saying this shit. It was awesome.

The other day I went to a Jiu-Jitsu graduation ceremony to get my blue belt, and there were 100’s of people in the room I didn’t know. I did see a few familiar faces though, and to stop myself from feeling like a total loser I talked awkwardly with them for a time.

I even invited one of them out to eat lunch, and they accepted! His girlfriend joined us too, and we had a good time together.

But at lunch I was acting as well. I was more bubbly, more talkative, than normal. It makes me feel a little weird thinking about it.

One of my favorite shows ever is Mad Men, and it deals with this issue perfectly. Don Draper, the main character, is a successful ad-man in 1960’s New York City, looking like he has it all but feels numb on the inside. Show creator Matthew Weiner said,

“Women and men identify with Don not because he’s cool and can solve every problem with his brain and women throw themselves out him, but because he’s one person on the inside, and another person on the outside.”

I was bullied heavily as a kid. I don’t know why but for 6 years I got bullied in elementary school. It scarred me for life so much that I went to high school and did my best to “fit in” everywhere I went. I never made waves. I never sought conflict with anybody. I acted like an invisible man in every class, and took cues on how to act from the popular boys at school.

Deborah Ann Woll talked about bullying on Jon Bernthal’s podcast in this powerful clip. She said:

“We present the opposite of our fears. So if my deepest fear is that I’m undesirable, unlikeable, and unwanted, then every action I do is in contrast to that—it’s to make sure that I’m not annoying to you, or that you like me.”

I relate to that so much.

I loved drinking and partying in high school, because that helped me loosen up and be myself a bit more. I stopped caring and started talking. I was fun! I was funny. That was my personality for a while—the party guy.

I went to a Christian college in Florida and had a gay roommate my first semester. He came out to me after three days of living together. “Tom, I’m a homosexual,” he told me. This was the first moment of deep vulnerability with a non-family member I ever experienced in my life.

People like me bullied guys like him. He put his neck out there and got vulnerable in a way I never forgot. What courage! It takes so much courage to be ourselves!

That’s what’s lacked with me most of my life—simple courage. I’ve always felt like such a boring person, and that I hardly ever make an impression on anybody.

In my pursuit of protecting myself in social situations, I’ve suppressed who I am. Hell, I don’t even know who I am!

At my core, I am an introvert. I don’t like talking to most strangers. Sometimes when I “feel” genuineness from someone else, I’ll make the effort, but most of the time I don’t even have the willpower to put on the act. I would rather be silent and awkward than burn energy putting on a show for someone.

There’s a popular book I like called The Courage To Be Disliked. It kind of touches on these topics. Here’s a great quote from it:

“If you are disliked by someone, it is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.”

I think about people around me who are the best at acting—family members, acquaintances. Ironically I’ve always disliked people who put on a big act. That goes for influencers online and people I know offline.

I’ve historically hated bloggers who write ridiculous headlines and play a certain self-help bro role.

But I’m also an actor online. I do things all the time that I don’t want to do. I fend off trolls with kindness when I really want to tell them to go to hell, or I spend hours responding to people when all I want to do is go play video games. This is the stuff we do.

Even in my marriage I keep the peace sometimes by not saying something that’s on my mind.

On one hand, this is problematic! But on the other there have been so many times in my life when doing something I didn’t want to do initially turned into something I very much enjoyed.

For example, asking my acquaintance out to lunch after jiu-jitsu. Honestly, I just wanted to go home with my wife, but I decided to take a chance and shake things up. The lunch went well, and became enjoyable after the initial awkward stage.

I suppose that’s one of the “pros” of acting. Sometimes acting can lead to a genuine connection with someone or a genuinely good time. It happens a lot. I find that many times, doing something you don’t want to do becomes enjoyable eventually.

What’s helped me with this, too, is empathy. Yes, self-help bros make me want to tear my hair out, but they’re human beings, too. They are playing a role, and feel the weight of performing just as much as I do. Should I really fault them for that when I spend lots of time acting as well?

I guess seeing through the bullshit can be a blessing. You’ll start understanding that everybody is burdened by constant performing, and that it’s not easy for any of us.

Empathy, once again, will win the day.

The answer isn’t to stop acting entirely.
The answer is to wait, choose moments to be courageous, and have empathy for the other person.

If you do that, life will feel less like a play and more like a dance - where sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow, and sometimes you both just move naturally to the same rhythm.