the utility of pretention

I have found that there is a very large gap between the demands of what I’ll call “personal and basic convictions/committments” (they take a very long to find and invite accountability and revision and refinement and evidence and re-evaluation – all of this because the overall direction and quality of one’s life hangs on these committments and one is rightly vigilant about them) and the demands of “social interaction” (these interactions require that one enter into shared language games, accept the meanings and practical implications of things as others understand them to be and be ready to act and respond as if one shared (and here is the catch, ‘artificially shared’) others’ understandings and committments. To the extent that one wants to have (or has to have) social interactions and to the extent that one does not indeed share the meanings and committments of those one interacts with, there is a necessary and salutary pretention in one’s actions. Two things are of note here for me. 1. to agree to social interactions and participate in them, despite the pretention involved in them, is a charitable thing to do. What one is doing here is that one is not witholding one’s responses and relations with others who do not share one’s basic committments and understandings. One is not requiring others to change in order to interact with you and one is relieving others of the burden and pressure to re-think and revise their basic committments for the sake of gainging access to whatever sociality and kindness and benefit etc. that can be exchanged between you. 2. While recognizing that pretention can be a means for expressing charity, it is equally important to keep in mind that socially visible behavior or speech (your own or others’) is a poor guide to what the other person (or you) actually and truly thinks and understands. Practically then, two things recommend themselves. One, I should engage in ‘social interactions’ to such an extent only that i do not get overwhelmed and tortured by the pretention it requires of me – i should realize that there is a limit to my charity towards others and that limit ends where any harm to myself begins and 2. I should count myself lucky or blessed if I can find one person in this world (if any at all) with whom i can be my real self. Sometimes, that person is me and even so, I should spend time looking into myself, with myself, and acknowlege what I actually think, what my basic committments are and why and if they are the right one’s to have – without any pretention.