There is anatta (no self) and there is ‘self’:
identity, you, me, him, her - the habitual self-construct. Usually we are engaged,
like this, in the act of ‘being somebody’. Many years ago I was staying
with a drama school friend in an apartment full of actors, performers and exceptional
‘people’, opportunists; all hustling for parts in TV, movies, music, anything. They
were performing all the time. Every step of the way was an opportunity to
perform – life itself was the audition.
In the apartment the phone was ringing
constantly, theatrical agencies calling up to return a call from somebody in
the apartment. The process of answering the phone was an invitation for these
multi-personality beings to try out a different persona every time. The phone
rings and whoever is sitting next to it answers, switching to a subtly
different ‘voice’, with a different accent, quite believable and acceptable to
the caller but interestingly ‘changed’ to those of us in the room.
It was baffling to me at first because
there’s a strange logic to this: the caller at the other end of the line is
‘somebody else’, a person with his/her own identity – hence the created
personality, character (game) seems like, well, appropriate? You create a
‘self’ to communicate with the other person’s ‘self’. The phone gets put down
and immediately rings again. The same person answers it in another ‘voice’ – an
identity that’s so different from the one he just used it’s hard to believe; bordering
on the schizoid. Who you are at that moment is determined by whom you’re
talking with. The way I project ‘my’ character, ‘my’ personality at a particular
point in time changes. I can appear to be somebody in one situation, then ‘be’
somebody else in a different situation. The ‘self’ function has
flexibility. The whole thing is about acting the part.
The skilled actor plays the part so well;
the spectator thinks he is the person, not the actor. The actor being himself
and simultaneously not himself reveals the ‘self’ construct. Or it could be
that the ‘act’ is revealed completely to the spectator; a self-reflexive act
that does not distinguish between the ‘self’ construct and acting the part,
it’s just there; a total act, an actor/spectator encounter. The performance is
not usually given a direction that would allow the spectator an opportunity to
see this extraordinary existential moment. For the most part, it’s accepted as
‘theatre’, illusion, samsara and
we’re immersed in the story of it all.
From: ‘Acting the Part’ http://dhammafootsteps.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/acting-the-part/
