Authenticity?

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. - Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist

What does it mean to be your "authentic" self? If we search for authenticity in our own lives, actions, etc, are we looking for a Truth that isn't there? The problems with seeking a "truth" is that it is a mirage - something we see up ahead, rush to find, only to be let down in the end. But with our selves, is there some sort of core self, and therefore, true self? No, probably not because people can go through major life and personality changes. The "self" itself (lol) is pretty damn ambiguous.

Szasz's quote fits in with an existentialist's view on life, which is probably why I find myself agreeing with it. The self, one's essence, is created by the one experiencing said existence. During my "day job," my students and I were considering the role of society in the construction of gender roles. The general consensus among 15 year olds (as well as anthropologists) is that society guides our view of what is acceptable and not when it comes to gender. Adults treat baby girls and boys differently, which was inculcated in them by their own parents, and them by their own parents, to the point that it becomes entrenched in our minds as being true. Yet, with awareness that not all girls have to play with dolls or not all boys who play with dolls will be "less manly" or "GAY," we can relax some of our solid notions on what we deem allowable for children, thus allowing them to pursue their own preferences.

Although this family may take it too far, it will be interesting to see what an environment free of conditioning from the outside will lead to. The students also concluded that gender stereotypes and gender roles are different, with stereotypes leading to a "boxing in" of potentials, and roles mirroring more natural biological talents of both men and women. Teenagers are pretty lucid when they want to be, and their observations were refreshing in a world full of shithead adults (Really, Phyllis? You're the shittiest Catholic on the planet - Jesus would not be pleased) who walk around spouting nonsense for attention and fame. It convinced me more that adults with narrow minds tend to be the problem because of their inability to break out of any sort of comfortable way of thinking. Meanwhile, someone whose identity is not yet solid, and is being challenged on a daily basis is actually a good indicator that being true to one's feelings is liberating.

This liberation is not only of expression, but of mind and body as well. As a culture, we impose a lot of rules on when teenagers should or shouldn't be doing certain acts -don't have sex until you're married, don't drink until you're 21, don't stay out late and blow off your homework - as though the adults have never made bad decisions in their lives. Instead of being a reformed hypocrite (or one of those former smokers who walks around coughing whenever someone even mentions cigarettes), try being honest. Younger people respect anecdotal evidence and the "lessons you learned" from being a piece of shit when you were younger more than hearing about how awesome you are now and how they should listen to you because you're older. And this goes back to my original query on the "authentic" self. Adults seem to have forgotten how to be honest with not only younger generations, but with themselves.

Sometimes, when you're snowed in, it's OK to have a dance party by yourself, or to pick your nose, or to do whatever act you had previously set up to be "taboo" in your mind. It might actually help release some pent-up aggression and frustrations that were building. Or maybe you'll reawaken some sort of talent that you'd been hiding because it was "silly" or "you weren't really that good at it anyway." Judgment is a time waster; it takes up energy that could be used to do something more enjoyable AND productive - who the fuck cares that all of your self-made pottery wheel vases lean to the left? At least you made them yourself. Find yourself in yourself. Not in a self-help book or in some fad diet. They may not work for the type of person you are, and if that is the case, they'll end up making you feel worse about yourself in the end. So we create a self, but there's a self that is undeniably us due to our experiences in the world. It is difficult to wrap one's head around this idea because finding and creating oneself seems to be only different semantically. But the nuance here is that because we're creating our "self" through our choices and by nature of our genetics; if we rely on "finding" ourselves outside our "self" then, no, it's not us. You can definitely learn and mimic the actions of others, but even these adopted traits will likely change in some way to represent some unique "you-ness."

If we think of both gender and ego as "performative," as though we are acting out a role, then we can think of the difference between a skilled actor and a bad actor. The bad actor is trying to play a character, he is NOT the character. A skilled actor is the character. We are men and women, and ultimately human, because we play one on TV. Some of us are reality TV stars that everyone hates, and others are winning Emmys by the boatload.

 Authenticity means only what you are at any certain moment, and if you're faking an accent, dressing a certain way, drinking a certain type of wine, et al, to live up to some sort of self-made image of who you really should be (that you hope other people share as well), well, let me tell you a secret : we know you're faking it and it's annoying the shit out of us.