AUTHENTIC, AUSCHMENTIC – When Being Yourself Is Just an Excuse for Being A Jerk

(As a Nature-and-wonder writer, I find most of my inspiration in the natural world. But I must continually remind myself that I am, that all of us homo sapiens are, also part of that world of wonder. We are animals…and at times we act like it. Often in ways that are most admirable, but also at times when we should know better.
The inspiration for this post is the heartache someone I know is experiencing over her estrangement from a very dear friend—one who’s suddenly decided that being kind and considerate is not who she is.)

“Authentic” has taken on a new definition. It used to mean real, without pretense, the genuine article. It had nothing to do with permission or entitlement, aspects today’s meaning seems to have acquired in spades.

Who knows, maybe it’s like the word “truth” in this, the Trump era; it means whatever you want it to mean. Or maybe it’s just some lazy psychiatrists’ attempts to make their patients feel better, even though not a single person the patient knows will actually be the better for it—nor will the patient for that matter.

No, authentic does not mean you can accept a friend’s invitation and then show up with a few of your own friends. It doesn’t allow you to make plans with someone and then just go ahead and do it on your own without telling them. It doesn’t forgive you for failing to communicate.

Do you think you can just do anything you want to, or say anything you damn well please, and then expect everyone else to just suck it up and say “Well, I guess that’s just so-and-so being authentic; that’s just who she is.”?

I don't think so. That’s not the way a thoughtful society works. It’s not the way true friendships work. Nor is it a behavior most of the world’s faith traditions would condone. Not when your “authenticity” comes at the expense of another’s—or a family’s, or a community’s.

       By acting in ways that put others out, by
       saying things that hurt, do you think that’s
       who you really are?

THE QUEEN OF DENIAL
I guess I should be more understanding, since being “authentic” takes on some of the characteristics of an addiction. There’s this little voice somewhere inside that tells you No, you shouldn’t say or do that! But then, denying those better instincts, you do it anyway. That's just the real you, you  rationalize.

I have no problem with folks trying their best to be true to their principles, but c'mon, don’t conflate that with permission to act out your character flaws.

Rarely, a brave friend or loved one will give you some honest feedback. But you’ve become very good at making sure such honesty comes at a price. Sadly, they usually find it’s not worth the effort. They just get used to it and absorb the impact of having to accommodate you.

Or you simply find someone new, be it friend, or counselor, or clergy person, who won’t mind enabling your weakness. Meanwhile, you just keep putting your “authenticity” — translation: needs—first, while imposing on, even hurting, people who should be able to expect more of you.

Do you really think that kind of denial has anything at all
to do with authenticity?

By acting in ways that put others out, by saying things that hurt, do you think
that’s who you really are? Or are you just demanding the right to be mean, angry
or thoughtless?

You really want to be authentic? Open your eyes. Try being more self-aware. Think. Find a way to move beyond whatever pains, problems and privileges in your life you've been nurturing instead of dealing with and moving past. Start acting like a friend, not to mention a member of a kind, cooperative society.

OPPOSITE REALITIES – At Sea In a World of Duality

On my frequent trips to New England—more specifically, to the very maritime South Shore area south of Boston—I see nautical charts everywhere. They decorate the walls of bars, hang in peoples homes, plaster the sides of trucks.

These handsome maps—some are works of art, really—show everything a sailor needs to know about the waters he or she is navigating. Water depths, natural features of the seabed, the ins and outs of the coastline, navigational hazards, locations of natural and human-made aids to navigation, information on tides and currents, and local details of the Earth's magnetic field.

It’s not surprising that sailors would have a unique, rather self-centered way of looking at the world; naturally, they think of the sea as where everything that matters to them happens. And surrounding it, the land, all but void, inconsequential except for its ability to shape one’s course and the winds and currents that affect it.

We landlubbers, on the other hand, see our element as the center of our world. The sea surrounds us. Our maps show everything we need to navigate our element, but leave the oceans nearly devoid of detail. Of course we’re aware of the seas, but, again, they're like an afterthought, acknowledged only for what they can do for us…or to us.

DISH OR CONE?
What can this equivalency of opposites teach a curious person about life? Do opposites—like opinions, let’s say—always have equal value? Metaphysically, might they be just mirror images of the same thing?

With much of what happens in my life I strive for a sort of quasi-Buddhist view: that one outcome has no more relevance or value than another. That the only things that really matter are—to quote the Buddha himself—how much you love, how gently you live, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

Easier said than done.

  Could the radically differing truths people seem 
  to espouse these days be, like those maps, simply 
  two different, but equally valid, versions of the 
  same reality?

A old friend was once diagnosed with cocci meningitis, a disease which at that time had a very high mortality rate. He chose to fight the disease with an arsenal of non-traditional weapons, including Buddhist spiritual practice. I’ll never forget his heartfelt summation of his chances: “If surviving this is a decadent bowl of chocolate ice cream, then dying from it is vanilla. They’re both ice cream.” (He ended up with the chocolate.)

ALTERNATIVE FACTS
Sure, I know this kind of stuff intellectually; its truth resides somewhere deep in my soul. But what about in my nuts-and-bolts, emotion-tinged real life? Can I really live with such ambivalence?

After all, it might help me as I ponder the extraordinary political and cultural polarization eroding civility in the US—and other developed countries around the world. Could the radically differing truths people seem to espouse these days be, like those maps, simply two different, but equally valid, versions of the same reality?

Or is it just a matter of which slices of the unfathomable totality of reality we choose to see, leaving the rest, like the land to a mariner, as one enormous blind spot?

I must say I’m having a hell of a time achieving the degree of inner peace that would allow me to see some of my countrymen’s utter denial of my reality—think “alternative facts”—as the vanilla ice cream to my chocolate.

What about you? What truths do you find in this notion of opposing voids and their relative validities? Can you stand on the solid ground of your own reason and values, and still accept the contrasting reality of those who seem so at sea?