Pretendsion
Pretendsion of a Heideggarian Dasein
Scene: The Black Forest. Tall, ancient fir trees loom, their branches interwoven to create a dim, dappled light on the mossy ground. The air is cool and smells of pine and damp earth. A small, rustic wooden hut, almost swallowed by the forest, is visible in the distance. SOPHIA, timeless and serene, stands near a gnarled tree root that twists out of the earth. JACQUES, with a restless, intellectual energy, emerges from deeper within the trees and approaches her.
Sophia: Welcome, Jacques. This forest hums with a different kind of silence, doesn't it? A silence that invites introspection into one's own being. Yet, I find many who walk these paths are more concerned with appearing to ponder profound thoughts than with truly engaging with them. They carry the weight of their own existence like a rare philosophical text they wish for everyone to notice, but have not yet absorbed into their bones.
To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.
— Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
Jacques: Ah, but Sophia, in carrying the text, in turning its pages for others to see, are they not engaged in the very act of reading? They perform the role of the profound individual facing their own being-in-the-world. To stage this performance convincingly, they must undertake the very actions the role requires. They must think the thoughts, speak the words, and wear the appropriate expression of existential gravity, perhaps even here, amidst these imposing trees.
Sophia: You see a performance that becomes the act itself. I see a shadow play cast by the flickering light between these trees. There is a difference between one who genuinely feels the primal call of their own finitude, echoed by the deep woods, and one who merely describes the forest's solitude with beautiful, echoing words. The former is fundamentally shifted by the experience; the latter is merely shifted by the admiration their description garners. They are performing the part of Dasein, a being-for-whom-being-is-a-question, without ever truly living the question in the depths of their own singular existence.
Jacques: But is the distinction so clear, even here where authenticity is so often invoked? Consider the man who decides to pretend to be a solitary thinker, attuned to the whispers of the forest. He walks the trails, sits by the stream, and gazes into the dappled light, all to maintain his facade of deep communion. Day after day, he does the things a solitary thinker does. At what point does this elaborate imitation become indistinguishable from the real thing? He intended to put on a mask, to blend with the Dasein of the forest, but in the end, he has simply done what a deep thinker does.
Sophia: The intention, Jacques. The root of the act. The one who genuinely listens to the forest's silence does so without a gaze on their reflection in the still pond. Their being flows into communion. The one performing communion is always aware of the subtle audience, even if it's only their own idealized self-image. Their energy is spent on the performance, not on the raw being. They may walk every path in this forest, but they will never truly feel its ancient pulse within themselves. They have mastered the grammar of existential authenticity, but they cannot speak its language from the true heart of their own self.
Jacques: Perhaps. Or perhaps what you call the ‘heart’ is just a more subtle, more internalized stage, hidden deeper within the dense foliage of the self. This 'authentic' man you speak of—is he not also performing? He performs for himself, for his own ideal of what it means to be genuine here, in this very specific clearing. He convinces himself he is not pretending. And so, in his great effort to be real, has he not simply created the most masterful illusion of all? He set out to stop pretending, to tear down the facade, and in doing so, he has only managed a more perfect pretense of the pretense itself. The game merely moves to a higher, more invisible level, even in the supposed stark reality of the woods.
Sophia: (A faint, knowing smile touches her lips as she gestures towards the unwavering strength of a massive fir tree) And yet, this tree stands. Its roots grip the earth. It reaches for the sky. It does not perform strength or pretend to reach. It simply is, in its own singular being. Perhaps true being is found not in the grand performance of facing one's existence, even here among these profound trees, but in the quiet moments where we forget to perform at all, and simply allow ourselves to be, like the very forest around us.
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