Well it's OK not to act as a waiter in a cafe while you are in fact a waiter in a cafe but some customers might be unhappy about how you conduct yourself as a r

Well it's OK not to act as a waiter in a cafe while you are in fact a waiter in a cafe but some customers might be unhappy about how you conduct yourself as a result, they might leave and your boss is likely to fire you. So that particular example was not convincing. That "actor doing a script" angle is true but the idea that you can drop it at any time is sadly not; many people have hard expectations of you depending on which role you are filling in their life at the moment. If you "break character" they'll reject you. Which is by no means a bad thing per se -- but it's also something a lot of people avoid, so the disclaimer of "break character and people will leave" is necessary. It goes both ways though, I've had work handed to me for generous sums just because I did not hide my actual persona and was not only acting as a programmer. As with everything: "it depends". I find myself in agreement with the premise of the article in general which can IMO be paraphrased as "do not do one-dimensional analysis of your life; treat it like thousands of smaller things happening at the same time and often intersecting". True enough, though our feeble human brains prefer just 2-3 narratives at a time and to shape our self and idea of a life story around them. So I agree that it's useful to try and actively sabotage with this way of internalizing life. We should not ignore complexity, for as much as our brain capacity allows it.