Authenticity (psychology): Underrated, Overrated?

[Salvijus]

18 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

SO good to see you pop in to this discussion 

Could not have happened without you. 🕊️ (there wasn't any other interesting thread around somehow.)

18 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Never forget!!!!

How could I. I'm the embodiment of this story. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Salvijus

[Olaf]

@Schizophonia if you become too sane, you become insane, if you become too insane, you become sane. Full circle moment. To have a functioning society we need some restrictions, but ultimately it is all made up.

[Salvijus]

1 hour ago, Olaf said:

@Schizophonia if you become too sane, you become insane, if you become too insane, you become sane. Full circle moment. 

Love is fearless, but those who are fearless are not always in love — sometimes they're just stupid. To be stupid and to be enlightened are two opposite sides of the spectrum, not a full circle at all. Although, funnily enough, a psychopath and a sage can appear to have many of the same attributes.

Edited 10 hours ago by Salvijus

[Rafael Thundercat]

22 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

appreciate the share! Do you know Tim Fletcher? His Youtube videos on shame are fantastic (he also goes into trauma, attachment, co-dependency). very clear and easy to understand

Thanks, I follow his lectures too. 

[Rafael Thundercat]

@Natasha Tori Maru

Finding a lot of wisdom listening this. 

sometimes I like story telling as a way to understand stuff, instead of just raw analysis. She would call it Moon Consciousness in the video. 

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Just now, Rafael Thundercat said:

@Natasha Tori Maru

Finding a lot of wisdom listening this. 

sometimes I like story telling as a way to understand stuff, instead of just raw analysis. She would call it Moon Consciousness in the video. 

 

Grateful 

I think storytelling lets us form images and metaphor - which can help us recognise a pattern where a similar mechanism is present. We see the links - which can make it clearer than simply analysing 

[Rafael Thundercat]

Here for all relfect. What about being a self-shifter? We are it anyway. This woman at least admit

I cant be the same self with my mother that I am with my friends or girlfriend.

[Joshe]

3 hours ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

Here for all relfect. What about being a self-shifter? We are it anyway. This woman at least admit

I cant be the same self with my mother that I am with my friends or girlfriend.

I’ve struggled to think how I could contribute here, and I think it’s largely because of context. What type of person would even be interested in authenticity? Seems like such a basic and simple question, but it actually seems to answer most of the conundrum. It’s like a microcosm. There’s a specific type of person concerned with authenticity, and it’s only a thing inside that microcosm. Probably not making any sense. I’ll try again later. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

6 minutes ago, Joshe said:

I’ve struggled to think how I could contribute here, and I think it’s largely because of context. What type of person would even be interested in authenticity? Seems like such a basic and simple question, but it actually seems to answer most of the conundrum. It’s like a microcosm. There’s a specific type of person concerned with authenticity, and it’s only a thing inside that microcosm. Probably not making any sense. I’ll try again later. 

Hmmm, but do you think this might be conflating "only a certain kind of person is interested in authenticity" with authenticity only being important inside that microcosm? I perhaps may be misunderstanding your passage here - prompting to be corrected

Consider mathematics: only a certain type of person might spend their evenings thinking about prime numbers - but that doesn't mean prime numbers are only applicable/relevant within the mathematical microcosm.

------

Are you pointing to authenticity being heavily context driven?

If I ask someone "what is authenticity?" there is an inherited context smuggled in to the answer that changes the answer almost every time - and while context is always relevant, it seems even more so with authenticity. "Authentic to what?" then becomes the refining question - and I can't escape asking this.

The above is why I also semi concluded authenticity does not have one universal definition (it can if we consider nonduality) .... because it is a relational term - it exists in the space between me and whatever I am acting in authenticity to. And that space changes as a result of any one of the two elements changing - it is relationally constituted.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Seems a problem of underdetermination.

[Joshe]

51 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Hmmm, but do you think this might be conflating "only a certain kind of person is interested in authenticity" with authenticity only being important inside that microcosm? I perhaps may be misunderstanding your passage here - prompting to be corrected

Consider mathematics: only a certain type of person might spend their evenings thinking about prime numbers - but that doesn't mean prime numbers are only applicable/relevant within the mathematical microcosm.

------

Are you pointing to authenticity being heavily context driven?

If I ask someone "what is authenticity?" there is an inherited context smuggled in to the answer that changes the answer almost every time - and while context is always relevant, it seems even more so with authenticity. "Authentic to what?" then becomes the refining question - and I can't escape asking this.

The above is why I also semi concluded authenticity does not have one universal definition (it can if we consider nonduality) .... because it is a relational term - it exists in the space between me and whatever I am acting in authenticity to. And that space changes as a result of any one of the two elements changing - it is relationally constituted.

Many questions arise when I inquire into my confusion on this. I consider myself very authentic, in the sense that I'm not very willing to dispense with what my being is telling me about any particular thing, and honoring what I'm perceiving - trusting myself. To do otherwise is very unnatural to me and registers as a salient violation. So I ask myself, "what is the difficulty with being authentic?" and don't come up with the same problems. It seems. I may be missing something. Opened to being probed here 😆

Even telling white lies is usually effortful for me. If I'm saying something, it's because that's what I think. I realize I'm probably behind the curve of this convo, so bear with me, lol. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joshe I think this concept is much, much more complex than we typically give it credit for. And I appreciate you going into the phenomenology of it for you - direct.

I raised this topic as I see this term thrown about online as some "virtue" in dating, psychology, family relationship etc. And it constantly left me concerned that no one was using the term in the same way... or even bothering to define it. And then in another thread on these forums there were many different takes on it. "Be authentic" sounds so profound when users throw it about - but it is severely under specified.

It seems like you act on authenticity based on a defined and known sense of self, correct? What if that self changes? What if your value changes? Authenticity must change for you as well... unless we go down the route of arguing that "I didn't know myself then, so I didn't know I wasn't acting out of authenticity" and this makes the term almost begin to lose all meaning. Does authenticity rely on us not being self deceived? This doesn't make sense either. Which you may have been attempting to elucidate (or maybe a tangential point).

It is not a function like authentic (x) - it is more like, authentic (x, relative-to-y, under-context-c)... or I could be overthinking.

But something about this all feels very unresolved as I continue to unpack it. Which is why I thought maybe a contemplation type thread might work

I almost want to find a reference point for authenticity - what makes one reference point the legitimate reference point for authenticity? As soon as I feel I am closer, more questions come up.

Edited 1 hour ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Joshe]

@Natasha Tori Maru Thanks for explaining. Yes, it seems very complex. I'm not able to find a workable structure for some reason. 

I think I grasp the level of complexity. I'm just trying to understand the point of it. Not to undermine the idea, but to see if there's an easier way around it. I used AI to figure out wtf is wrong with my thinking here: 

For whatever that's worth. Seems legit. lol