A Response

I don't think most people know that they are pretending... when you talk about this it implies a conscious "effort" to portray the aspects you talk of. People are unconscious of the way they "act". In other words, I say that the act of "thinking" is the basis of the pretense. It is just that one cannot do anything to stop pretending. We don't know what, how or why a person "wakes up to reality" and another does not. I sense it is a matter of evolution.