authenticity
- Thread starter the
- Start date
If you think that your circumstances and inclinations are more arbitrary than not then I don't know where you'd be getting the idea of a 'real me' from.
But even someone who knows the 'real them' can enjoy things that aren't in the interest of self-realisation. They're still human and nice things are nice.
Living authentically would cause one to set aside certain things. Not because they don't enjoy them or don't see value in them but because they know that they should focus on other things. It's only when you are viewing the world from your own perspective and not through somebody else's filter that you can make honest judgements about what is valuable to you as you are now and bearing in mind what you are trying to achieve whilst you're here.
But even someone who knows the 'real them' can enjoy things that aren't in the interest of self-realisation. They're still human and nice things are nice.
Living authentically would cause one to set aside certain things. Not because they don't enjoy them or don't see value in them but because they know that they should focus on other things. It's only when you are viewing the world from your own perspective and not through somebody else's filter that you can make honest judgements about what is valuable to you as you are now and bearing in mind what you are trying to achieve whilst you're here.
Hmm, this is an interesting question for me as I find myself letting go of somethings and searching for other things that are more in alignment with who I am. I suppose it's how far or how literal you take the concept of authenticity. One definition of authentic is to be genuine. So, logically, to do something you genuinely dislike wouldn't necessarily make a person inauthentic unless they were trying to convince themselves that they did indeed like what they disliked. Everyone has to do things they don't necessarily like. I don't like cleaning the bathroom, but I do it. Does that make me inauthentic.
I'm thinking the concept of authenticity has to do with being and living a life that is in alignment with who I naturally am. When I do inauthentic things I have to spend a great deal more time convincing myself that what I'm doing is actually right for me. After awhile it becomes a chore, then discontent moves in, and then unhappiness sets up camp. So, logically, a person could assume that in some cases, discontent and unhappiness are signs that a change is either needed or already happening. I suppose authenticity is connected to integrity; meaning, a persons actions reflect what they genuinely feel and think.
I also think people change in regards to what is authentic to them. To use a visual; how many layers must one peel away before getting to the core of who they are. I'm also not sure authenticity is something that applies to a person as a whole. I mean, we can be authentic in some areas and still searching for our authentic selves in other areas. I would imagine authenticity is something everyone experiences in a different way, on different levels, at different times, and about different things.
I'm thinking the concept of authenticity has to do with being and living a life that is in alignment with who I naturally am. When I do inauthentic things I have to spend a great deal more time convincing myself that what I'm doing is actually right for me. After awhile it becomes a chore, then discontent moves in, and then unhappiness sets up camp. So, logically, a person could assume that in some cases, discontent and unhappiness are signs that a change is either needed or already happening. I suppose authenticity is connected to integrity; meaning, a persons actions reflect what they genuinely feel and think.
I also think people change in regards to what is authentic to them. To use a visual; how many layers must one peel away before getting to the core of who they are. I'm also not sure authenticity is something that applies to a person as a whole. I mean, we can be authentic in some areas and still searching for our authentic selves in other areas. I would imagine authenticity is something everyone experiences in a different way, on different levels, at different times, and about different things.
I've noticed that you fixate on taking issue with the wording of statements a lot, @the .
I don't think the point of people saying that is that by doing something they don't agree with they'd be "inauthentic". The point is that they don't want to live in a way that they don't personally agree with. They think something is wrong, so they don't want to associate this wrong thing with themselves. I'm sure that makes sense. I don't think it has much to do with the concept of authenticity.
Though of course, I'm not certain if that's the only sort of circumstance you're putting out here.
I don't think the point of people saying that is that by doing something they don't agree with they'd be "inauthentic". The point is that they don't want to live in a way that they don't personally agree with. They think something is wrong, so they don't want to associate this wrong thing with themselves. I'm sure that makes sense. I don't think it has much to do with the concept of authenticity.
Though of course, I'm not certain if that's the only sort of circumstance you're putting out here.
Well other than making this thread, there was also the thread about monogamy where you go off someone's statement and seem to want to look into what they mean by that, but you go off of their literal wording of it and then attribute the concept you think fits what they're talking about...
And like just in general when you respond to posts a lot of the time, you tend to isolate certain phrases and respond to that. A lot of the time it actually seems to be really effective because it exposes potholes in peoples' logic and shows them a different perspective, but like with this thread and the monogamy thread, I feel like what you are questioning is something beside the point of the purpose of the statement. Like just because someone says "the real me" doesn't mean you have to connect that to authenticity. Just because someone says "mono means one, not zero", doesn't mean monogamy makes sex a duty.
Would you say the real me and the authentic me are two different things then? If yes how so? If no then... what?
You presented the context of: "doing something they don't want to do" = inauthentic. The answer is obviously, of course not. Someone in a concentration camp doesn't want to walk through a gas chamber and be burnt to a crisp; it has nothing to do with authenticity. Your choices often don't have much to do with authenticity, which basically means a non-fake representation of you. However, people may choose to not do things which don't sit well with them, saying, "well, I'm not going to do that, it's not me".
"The real me" is the source of authenticity but "real me" is not the same thing as "authentic" or "me being authentic". "Real me" can exist because "real" implies truth vs. non-truth; a true you or a false you makes sense. "Authentic me" cannot exist because "authentic" implies that there is an original source to be had from, and there is only one you to source from. You could say "authentically me" or "me being authentic" because then you are applying authentic to an object or action (where the original source is you).
I meant willingly do. It seems obvious that if you are forced against your will to do something, that wouldn't be considered part of the real you. I don't understand how you could come to the conclusion that the choices you make don't represent you.
I meant: Your choices represent you if they're willing, but they don't have much to do with fakeness or non-fakeness unless that's really a relevant factor in the situation.
Like if I was choosing between different brands of spaghetti sauce at a supermarket and I randomly chose one that I didn't want to choose, it wouldn't be inauthenticness just because I did that. But if there was someone else with me and they told me that only cool people choose Brand A and the "real me" secretly thought Brand B was better but I chose A to give off the impression that I'm cool, then that is inauthentic.
Ironically I'm going off of your literal wording of things now, because when you say "willingly" then I think in a lot of cases that does mean it's inauthentic. To me in your OP what you wrote with your connection to that phrase you mentioned hearing other people saying, it seemed like pieces of information were missing and that you were randomly attributing all people saying anything like that to trying to avoid inauthenticness.
I think what people are trying to avoid is complicated. They don't want to be someone or stand for something which they don't personally believe in or endorse because they see being inauthentic as undesirable or immoral, for one thing. But for another thing, they may also think that the thing they don't want to endorse is also bad outside of the issue of authenticity. This latter part is what I initially interpreted the phrase at the end of the OP as seeming to be more the case.
Sounds like you're referring to situations in society where we are required to follow certain rules of performance, which some of us sometimes read as inauthentic to who we are. So, maybe we should question whether we are any less ourselves just because we have to do things we don't want to do. I think the idea of feeling inauthentic comes from a feeling that we don't want to have to behave or act in any way which goes against our personal values because they are such an important part of our identity, and we sometimes consider it a violation of self to behave in manner contradictory to how we feel. Maybe it makes us feel true to ourselves because we hold the value of personal integrity very highly in every aspect of our lives. It could be that we don't know how to separate our values from our behavior, because we see them as intertwined. We have this strong belief what we feel or think should be reflected in all of our actions. I think this is the struggle for Fi, is that it constantly feels compromised when it has to do things which contradict personal feelings or values. It's likely not always practical to see things in this way. I guess this attitude is partially based on living in a culture which kept emphasizing "be yourself" for so long that we believed that we had to live according to how we felt in every aspect. It made us think we shouldn't have to compromise or put our personal beliefs aside for the sake of doing sometthing that was expected or required of us.
