Living for the Imagined Audience in Your Mind
But who are we when the audience is gone?
This question strikes at the heart of something many of us rarely consider, how much of our identity is shaped by the audience we imagine watching us. Whether it’s friends, coworkers, or social media followers, we often tailor our behavior based on who we think is observing. Are you who you are when you are not performing for your people inside your head? Are you who you say you are, if no one is listening?.
The Invisible Script We Follow
We learn early how to play along with social cues and put on personas according to whom we are dealing with. At school, we are one way around the teachers, another around our classmates. At home, we do yet another version of ourselves depending upon with whom we are surrounded: siblings, parents, or alone. It’s like we are constantly running through invisible scripts, rehearsing lines for each role we play. But where does that leave the person behind the script? Who is the person behind the script?
In social groups, we shape our behaviors to conform to the group’s expectation and norms in a crowd. Among friends, one may play up certain traits — you become more outgoing or crack jokes that you would otherwise never crack — just to fit the group vibe. It’s almost like wearing a mask: one that subtly changes with each setting yet the more we wear it, the harder it becomes to know an authentic us.
The trouble starts here, we spend so much time trying to fit into various groups that we lose our sense of who we are outside of those contexts. We get so accustomed to the “performance” that we forget how to be unfettered. And the danger is, our self-worth is in the hands of others rather than our own internal compass.
How do we regain ourselves in a world performance-stained? The answer lies in introspection. That very simple seemingly simple question of ‘who you are when nobody’s watching’ reveals so much about you. What makes you happy, sad, or frustrated? And all this while nobody’s there to see that? What is going on in your head? Who has it decided what you should be thinking about?
