Journal XI: Authenticity
Journals X-XII will form a trifecta of posts regarding aspects of personhood I consider often. These cover the influence of Wisdom, Authenticity, and Love. Together, these Journals can be called the Thoughtful Trilogy.
I have no ambition or goals. I know what is good to me. That is all I require. The rest aligns itself as I live by the philosophies closest to my worldview. This is my Way.
What is authenticity? A mountain turning to dust.
When we talk about authenticity, what are we even trying to talk about? Being ‘real?’ How can you get more real than the material condition of your daily living? We suggest that our actions may be ‘inauthentic,’ but only as those actions relate to our perceptions of ourselves (or others’ perceptions of ourselves). However, our perceptions certainly cannot be considered ‘real,’ can they? At the least, action is ‘more real’ than thought. To suggest the inverse only invites deep insecurity and a lack of fulfillment. We cannot escape from what is evident to us in our action, regardless of how our thoughts may alter our perception.
So, what is authenticity?
I have found more fulfillment in the process of overcoming adversity than I have in the process of trying to be true to myself. Trying to be true to oneself is pointless if one can’t even see one's face without a mirror. When practiced effectively, overcoming adversity brings us in alignment with our greatest aspects. One becomes more uncertain, more skeptical, and aware of our fallibility, and that uncertainty affords the space for personal truth to emerge. Not everyone succeeds in this, and philosophy must be a guiding post (rather than consumerism). I think it takes patience, and a lot of self-forgiveness.
Perhaps we are ‘untrue’ to ourselves constantly, but our actions still make us. The ‘untrue’ action is not untrue because it is not us. It is us. Otherwise, it would not have been done by us. Recognizing this relationship can open the door to ‘truth’: there can be no authentic way of being without some ‘inauthentic’ way of being. To be ‘authentic,’ one must accept the dichotomy of inner conflict, and work to overcome it constantly, ever arriving at new iterations of personhood. I am an honest person, but I have been critically dishonest in a way that has compelled others to regard my dishonesty as distended from my personhood. They have thought I have been inauthentic in my behaviour. This has never been the case. My dishonesties were as much a function of my honesty as they were of my dishonesty. There is no action I take that is out of line with who I am. There are only those actions which derail my sense of self and those which unify it. Neither indicate a flaw in my capacity to be ‘authentic,’ and perhaps that observation is the most authentic way that I am.
This business of seeking authenticity is lonely, selfish work. Authenticity is a misnomer much like wisdom: I think authenticity likely doesn’t exist. It is an idealistic knick-knack in our cultural consensus. It offers harmony with the self—something that is perhaps possible, but not desirable. I don’t know that I have ever met an ‘authentic’ person. I have met people whose actions were broadly in line with their beliefs, but I have never met someone who kept this up successively without some emergent quality that disrupted their ‘authenticity.’ We’re just animals. The natural way for us to be is to just be, warts and all. Each movement we take is another handful of spaghetti lobbed at the wall of our psyche.
What is authenticity? When I am guilty, I admit it, because that is the most useful action to me and to those I’ve betrayed.
The most useful emotion for one seeking authenticity might be shame or guilt. It’s unfortunate that we have such religious baggage around shame, because it’s a remarkably useful emotion both for ourselves and all our kin. I’m rather relieved that when I do something that is out of alignment with my conception of myself that I then feel remorse about it. That’s an intelligent tool for overcoming the contradiction of being. It’s an excellent tool for practising one’s ‘good’ and for keeping in harmony with one’s cherished philosophies. Unfortunately, we do not receive shame and guilt as positive emotions, but as those we ought to dispense with in some way. Like anxiety, or anger. I think it is more honest, more authentic, to listen to yourself.
But we are not good at listening to ourselves. Rather, it is too easy to become caught up in the illusions we manifest around us. Most of the people I have ever known have been great hypocrites. If there’s one thing most excel at, it is exercising contradiction between thought and action. This applies most often, I think, to love and romance where love is a practice that most cannot even understand, and romance is an illusion that most cannot even dispel. Most never touch love, instead wasting their life on limerence. But more on that in our next entry.
What is tragic about the hypocrite is their inability to exercise their own doubt. It is better to keep silent and listen than to cast judgement at all. This practice brings us closer to awareness of our fallibility through the observation of others’. However, the hypocrite’s hypocrisy is not a sign of inauthenticity; rather, it is mere philosophical weakness. When the hypocrite fails to hold concordance in thought and action, it is not because there is a falsehood to their identity. It is because falsehood is a part of their being. In this sense, their hypocrisy is the ‘authenticity’ they cannot even recognize.
Identity and being are fickle, truly. There is no way to live such that you are not yourself, and so there is no sense living such that you fret about being yourself. This is why I reject the notion of authenticity. It is naught but the manic illusion of an imperfect thing that wishes for perfection to exist in the world. Perfect worlds do not exist, and neither do perfect folk. You will tend to your own and leave others to tend theirs. There is nothing special about anyone, and so there is little sense in pointing out our contradictions in character. They are mere skipping stones for identity and being to find rest on the sea floor.
What is authenticity? A perfect imperfection.
I often consider autonomy, and the importance of practicing one’s autonomy. I think some degree of practice brings one into concordance with one’s higher sense of self. For, when we talk about authenticity, I think we are mainly regarding that which brings us in concordance with our higher sense of self. Whatever this means. But I enjoy practicing autonomy for this reason. Sometimes, it is good to do something unexpected. Go swim in the river. Toss your phone across the yard. Tackle your sibling. Go chop down a tree. Pull blankets outside at 2am and watch the stars. Get into something new. There is deep joy in practicing humanity this way. The world is a playground. Talk to the flowers. Kiss the beach. Make love to the woods.
Understand, I do not mean: Do whatever you want. That is not practicing autonomy. I mean: Practice the act of experience. Consciously practice experience. Have the difficult conversation. Open up about the kink. Define the boundary for your friend. Write the sad poem. Ask the cute boy about his feelings. Chop the wood. Carry the water. Don’t just fuck whomever or stay up late for no reason. That’s not autonomy, that’s just distraction. Do it for the philosophy, not the gratification. We’re humans, not just apes. Honour the ape in you but love the human. Consciousness is a gift. That’s why you’re here. Practice your gift. Don’t just live. Do. In concordance with your conscious efforts, do; thus, be.
I am no savant in this. I am no sage. The other day, I accomplished nothing in the way of aligning my thought and action, or even in practicing autonomy. I was inauthentic in that I did not do what I needed done. It is no matter. Instead, I was authentic in the activity of playing video games and spending time with my siblings. Now, I am honest about it here. I accomplished nothing but the satisfaction of spending time with those who bring me comfort. Inauthentic? Yes. Authentic? Yes. See, labels are useless in language. Almost as useless as the language itself.
What is authenticity? The ten thousand things become one again.
Of course, we most often consider the quality of our authenticity in the context of our interpersonal actions with others. Funny, how that is? We consider authenticity in the context of things which are objectively not-us. What does it matter who we are for other people? I am me most for myself and for those whom I love. For everyone else, I am a miasma of ephemera that cannot be quantified. They will think of me as they wish off the limited context they receive. I will be me, nonetheless. We should not be so concerned with our integrity in the eyes of others, but only with our own conception of our integrity. Hence why I think shame can be so useful. Some are quite good at practicing communication with their shame. It has taken me a while to learn such practice. Others would hold shame over us, but this is just petty and ignorant behaviour on their part.
In Daodejing, we are told that to care for others’ opinions is to become their prisoner. I do believe this is true. We hold ourselves to obscure standards we did not invent. We maintain these standards on behalf of others, failing to recognize how they deteriorate what is good in us. What is good in us? The capacity to ignore others’ standards. I have no expectations for any of my loved ones. I only hope they continue to receive my love in whatever capacity suits them best. It is easier to live when you let go of others’ living. Likewise, it is easier to live when you let go of others’ ideas for your living.
What is authenticity? None of your goddamn business.
I had thought to write about Authenticity as a part of this “Thoughtful Trilogy” because I have spent a large portion of the year deconstructing my identity. This is the practice of my writing lately. I am not so interested in what I am alone but also in what I am not. When I explore what I am not, it does not seem to me that what I am not is much different at all from what I am. In this way, I have concluded that there may be no such thing as an authentic way of being. There are only iterations of the self, each a bit more defined (or even nebulous) than the last.
We have a tendency to assign a word much more meaning that it deserves. Wisdom is like this, and so Authenticity seems the same. Next time, it will be Love. They are the moon’s reflection and so many are like Li Bai, tempting fate by chasing the moon’s reflection. A consideration: perhaps everyone should drown then. Perhaps more would wake up to the dialectical monism of being and doing. I have forsaken sense in favour of sense-making, a process that is often garrulous and untidy. This is why The Distended Orthonym is an invocation and not a publication. “I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t me.” This is why I take confession here and why I let my heteronyms sing unfiltered. This is an invocation of becoming.
The practice of authenticity is not the practice of seeking what is true in your expression: it is merely the practice of expressing what is true in you. What is true in you? What brings passion, even if unfulfilling. The purpose of life is not to be fulfilled. That is a capitalist lie. The purpose of life is to express and experience. All other things that come about from expression and experience are just the flavours of personhood. They have no impact on the veracity of one’s expressions. The practice of authenticity is not the practice of finding yourself. The practice of authenticity is the practice of losing yourself over and over.
There is an idea about identity, from an old quotation I cannot recall or find, that suggests you ought to destroy your identity in order to preserve it. This is bullshit. We serve ourselves petty comforts because the truth is difficult to contend with philosophically: you have no control. Identity will be destroyed not because you will it, but because your attachment to it is a straw dog. There is no identity beyond the haphazard construction of ideas and impulses that ‘make’ you. It is an illusion of perception. This is why the practice of authenticity is the practice of losing yourself over and over. There is nothing ever to find. You merely become accustomed to the comfort of losing yourself, such that it becomes a practice to you. Do not hedge your bets on attaining authenticity: it is idealistic and hopeless. Your expectation will be the death of you. It is easier to accept oblivion and work from the notion of impermanence.
What is authenticity? When I am not myself, I am not myself; and, when I am someone else, I am most myself. When I am ashamed, I am good; and, when I am not ashamed, I am good. When I am hungry, I eat; and, when I am hungry, I don’t eat. When I am tired, I do not sleep; and, when I wake, I sometimes sleep a bit more. When I love another, I do not always love them; and, when I cannot love another, I love them beyond measure. When I write a sentence, I do not like my craft; and, when I write a hundred sentences, I do not care that I do not like my craft. When I am sad, I cannot weep; and, when I am not sad, I weep unexpectedly. When I write about authenticity, I do not know what is correct; and, when I write about authenticity, I do not care what is correct.
What is authenticity? It is what the flowers do in the wintertime. They do not wither and die but are deconstructed to their origin. The seed is the flower practicing the comfort of losing itself.
In closing: Identity is a lie, and so is the Nothing we are. I am not the things I want to be or what I am alone. I am a secret multitude, and thus must you be also. We are not any conception of what we are. The blank slate is never filled.
This entry was prompted in part by this essay from Samantha Rose Hill on Hannah Arendt. I recommend it for the philosophically inclined. Here is a quotation from that piece:
“The will is the only intervention we have
against the conditioning of worldly existence.”
And I like that rather a lot. You are what you do; therefore, be what you are.
Thank you for reading.