The gamble of being

Here again, something is unlearned: we usually assume that a mask hides the real self, but for Arendt, the mask is the form in which the self can express itself. It enables the person to turn toward the outer world. "We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human. Thus the act of appearing puts a provisional end not only to the two-in-one of thinking but also to the idea that "inside they're all the same" in the way of pure vegetative functioning. "Only what appears outwardly is distinct, different, even unique. In one word, our emotions are all the same, the difference is in what and how we make them appear." Nature, in other words, has hidden and left formless everything that is purely functional. This act of appearing is the gamble of being a person.

Dramatization: The World As Stage, The Text As Space in Unlearning with Hannah Arendt by Marie Luise Knott, translated by David Dollenmayer