I watched an excellent movie last week. It was called Darkon, and it is a
documentary which examines the phenomenon of LARP, or Live Action Role Playing.
Now, this is role playing in the Dungeons and Dragons Style, and Darkon is in
fact an entire make believe world where people take roles and act them out in
real life. Check out the web site for the Darkon Group here.
One of the people in the movie pointed out a fact which has inspired me to do
some thinking. He said that everyone role plays all the time, and all that makes
the people who do Darkon different is that they have fun doing it. This is a
pretty profound thought, and made me think about what roles society forces us to
play and how that all works.
At first I thought of the nervous guy on a first date. He is doing everything
that he can to impress his date. Is he really being himself? Or is he
roleplaying the guy that he thinks the girl wants him to be. What about the
first time you meet your boyfriend/girlfriends parents? Are you really yourself,
or a version of yourself you rarely see.
There is also the work version of yourself... do you play a role there? Are
you really happy to answer the phone EVERY time it rings? If we were naturally
that happy, we would not have to go through training to teach us how to be
happy. Are you more polite when in public then in private? Is that even a
role?
Are we constantly roleplaying...or are the roles we play the things that
define us a person? I lean more toward the second. All the things we do, we do
for a reason, and the roles that we play participating in those activities
define us as an individual. The fact that I am a husband, and a church elder,
and a tennis player all blend together to create the amazing thing that is an
individual human begin called Me. I am a function of my roles, and my roles are
not avoidances of the true me. To think the opposite is to avoid taking
responsibility for your own being. If you like to run around in a field and hit
other people with big foam weapons, be proud of it, and don't write it off as
something you do that is separate from your true being.
Thoughts....???