This is what emerges when one tries to play a role or being what one is not and or trying to live to an image that is making up to be something that others expect instead of being genuine in situation.
Therefore, one plays the role of something, someone which one is not. Or tries doing something that is not really the self but a made-up version of what is expected of me. Or when one does live naturally there is no need to put an upfront façade which others see. Life is to large extent a role play where one never is, in situation. Or we may remark that every other merely involves in role play but never quite recovers from that stage.
Sartre has remarked that to be in such a modal existence is that one simply is in bad faith that is not quite being there but carry on living a form of pretence. In this mode there may never be a real relationship that emerges as all one does is carry on playing a role; with the roles itself being staged by bad actors because the latter are never quite themselves or could not be so as they are engrossed in doing the expected rather than revealing as a warmth in situation.
When this happens with every other doing the same, no one is quite natural or facing up to the what is as revealed in situation. And it is a pretence in action all round. When this is so, relationships and togetherness give way to a mode of being that one is not. It is about putting an upfront to others and play a role.
Playing such a role in life means one is always not quite the self that one is. It is more of a truncated version of taking shelter of the false ego self which is projected by the bodily form which takes its directives off the mental which forces one to be or let us be more precise to act in a certain way.
The tragedy is that every other does the same: when this happens, it all becomes a nightmare as one then talks and walks and relates to others in a format characteristic of role playing but to follow what we are saying the participants do so for life.
There is no cut off point to reflect as in this mode one is doing simply what one is meant to be doing as per the norm.
The lack of course is that one misses out: it is all spurious engagements where the actors are never quite clearly with the audience: Indeed, there are no audience or theatre where the actors may break free and be themselves. The idea of being oneself is lost as one is entangled in a whirl of passion for ever and always being what one is not. In this scenario, even the audience are actors or to be precise plain actors as well as they are also part of the same scheme or format which coerces each other to be at a level where there is no reprieve from that superficiality where all are prey likewise.
That plain genuineness has been betrayed in the mode of a bodily self which has taken control of one’s life. The latter is never quite the self but a partiality where the self is lost and when this happens the subject is no more than a betrayal of the self. Where everyone does so, roles are predefined and set and the actors merely simply remain in roles. To be sure in a such a situation it is all about being in that mode. In such a style of life, it is always about living the life as is imposed from the exterior and when this happens, there arises bad faith that aspect which makes pretence the norm!
There is no proper connection as all is marred based on predefined format as if one may have to be at play constantly. It is a movement away from the Shakespearean diktat of the fact that the world is a stage when one tries to break free from that norm. Ambiguously, one may simply acknowledge that the English Poet/playwriter/actor merely was observing the nature of life and of our dilemma if so then the idea of breaking free from the norm remains the point which is always being referred to by way of irony in observation.
And sure, Shakespeare through the mouthpiece of Hamlet clearly was delving on the idea of to be and not to be…..which again, I have addressed elsewhere as being a question of how to be and as such very much a question of pausing , and reflecting towards that mode which takes us away from a mere aspect of pawn in the game of acting where we pays no heed to that which reveals to the self but seek to adopt to a form which makes us mere objects or no more than mere automatons or to be as what is expected.
Bad faith is that view which takes us away completely from what and who we are towards ignoring that self which one is and so merely being an object or to be in a set pattern. There may not be creativity in the format as we are plain re-activists and so are so entrenched in a dogmatic or dictatorial mode: where this is in operation, we are a nonentity a plain thingness in the mode of in-itself to adopt an existentialist term. Or either letting aside that subjectivity with being entranced in a brutal reductionism where what matters are simply a format of placing each and everyone in boxes so that along with others there is a sense of contentment at being so involved. All becomes a pre-set pattern, and on this view, one continues to play a role.
It is about setting oneself free from that role, a role that one is deeply caught up into: The task ahead to shrug free and move onwards which may be possible when one reaches out to the self that one is, away from that mundane bodily self.