Imagine a week in which no one saw you. Not hidden, not lonely — simply unobserved. Food arrives. The days pass. Nothing is recorded and nothing will be reported.
Now notice what you would stop doing.
Not the obvious things. The small ones: the particular way you hold your face, the sentence rehearsed for later use, the small adjustments made continuously for an audience that is not, at this moment, present.
How much of what you call your personality is a performance running on the assumption of witnesses?
The question is not an accusation. Performance is not a crime; it is most of social life, and it is often kind. The enquiry is narrower: do you know when you are doing it?
Because a performance you are aware of is a choice. A performance you have forgotten is running is a cage — and it is quite a small one, and you built it.
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