Authenticity is one of the hottest topics of discussion among my children’s generation. They talk about the need to be genuinely authentic in everything they do. I am okay with that. Anyone who wishes to strive to be more authentic should absolutely go for it. But there is one aspect to the whole idea that confuses me: can a genuine search for authenticity ever really end?
My question is no joke. It is very real, and it’s based on my own realizations of how much I have changed over the last three decades. I am not the same person I was in my twenties. I’m guessing I will be different still when I reached my seventies. What I want to know is, how does a changing me affect the authentic me?
How I Understand Authenticity
Maybe my confusion is rooted in my understanding of authenticity. Perhaps I just don’t understand what it’s all about. As I see it, authenticity is about not pretending to be someone you are not. It is about being who you are, at all times, even if other people don’t understand or accept it.
I don’t know that my definition is correct, but I do know that other people share a similar definition. For instance, there is a boutique clothing brand based in New York City known as Plurawl. One of their primary missions is to encourage authenticity in the LatinX community. They do so through the messages on their t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies.
Plural wants its customer base to be proud of who they are as people. They want customers to be proud of their Latin heritage and culture. The expectation is that they live proudly as Hispanics regardless of what anyone else thinks or expects.
Who I Am Changes
I am fine with the concept of living a life reflective of who you really are regardless of other opinions. My challenge is in the fact that who I am keeps changing. Thirty years ago I would never have backed down from a fight. Challenge me and I would have answered back in kind. These days though, I have enough experience to know that most fights aren’t worth having.
Would it have been inauthentic for me to back down in my twenties? Likewise, would it be generally authentic to fight back in my fifties, just because that’s what I would have done as a younger man? It seems to me that authenticity changes as a person changes. And if this is the case, the search for genuine authenticity seems like a lifelong endeavor.
A Distorted Mirror
Pondering my own authenticity led me to another revelation – that being the need to be a mirror. To hear younger people talk about it, genuine authenticity acts as a mirror in that it allows other people to discover their true selves as well. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s not so good.
There are aspects of who I am that I would never want to see in other people. Why would I want to reflect those things? Wouldn’t it be better if I worked on purging those aspects from my core being? I think so. But then again, maybe trying to change who I am is denying my own authenticity.
I guess this all boils down to the fact that I am not sure if true authenticity can ever be achieved. People change. I have changed. In some ways I am better, in other ways I am worse. Trying to sort it all out seems like too big a job to get done in the few years I have left.
