Got your attention, eh? Now, forget the title, but let’s talk about Being.
So, I am dropping the phrase ‘temporarily adopting a lifestyle’ for Being because it confuses the bejesus out of me and squirts jet black ink all over my mind.
Instead I am using this chunk of text to set me head right:
existing in a certain manner, even if it’s
not you at your core
“he was living as a family man”
“he was living as a starship captain”
“he was living as a student”
“he was living as an invalid”
The definition seems to almost include the idea of self-deception or deception. But I don’t think that’s right. I think there is a SPACE between Who You Really Are and How You Are Living, and that’s true for every single one of us, and it’s a very interesting and telling topic about the character. That space is all about who we are. But I don’t think deception is usually involved. I think we usually walk into it fully aware and overtime we become confused and in trouble, because we realize we are Becoming someone. The space is disappearing, and it turns out that maintaining that space is essential to our identity.
To use my favorite example:
In first season Star Trek, when it was a Drama show, before NBC told Roddenberry to turn it into an Action/Adventure series in seasons 2 and 3, Kirk was a bookish introvert, a ‘a stack of books with legs’ from the Academy, who happens to be good at being a Captain too, but there’s that space between the appearance he has to create and Who He Really Is. He is Being a Starship Captain. He is afraid of Becoming just a Man with a Job (which is what in fact he eventually becomes.)