People talk endlessly about living an authentic life. We hear these sorts of statements around us all the time:
- Be yourself
- Trust yourself
- Speak your truth
- Live authentically
It all sounds wonderfully noble until someone asks a very awkward but possibly very necessary question.
Authentic to what? Which Self are we using for this calibration of authenticity?
The Self:
- that was praised?
- that was rejected?
- that learned how to survive?
- that learned how to belong?
- that was wounded?
- that built an identity around being wounded?
- that became strong?
- that became proud of being strong?
Where exactly are we anchoring this thing we call authenticity?
Because if we are not careful, authenticity becomes nothing more than loyalty to a familiar pattern. With the very best intentions, a person can spend an entire lifetime being authentic to a distortion.
And not because they are dishonest, but because they have never thought to question the one who is doing the looking.
Brace yourself because this is where things start to get uncomfortable!
Most people imagine self-inquiry as a process of discovering who they really are. Increasingly I suspect it is the opposite.
I think it is the slow dismantling of everything we mistakenly believe ourselves to be.
Not the discovery of truth so much as the removal of interference. And that interference is rarely where we first think it is.
We are usually very good at spotting these kinds of distortion in other people. We are happy to point the finger at:
- the liar
- the manipulator
- the narcissist
- the hypocrite
- the politician
- the partner having an affair
- the person telling one story whilst living another
Those distortions in others are the low hanging fruit and easy to see. The much harder question is:
What distortions am I protecting?
Probably not consciously nor maliciously, but because they have become part of my identity; my comforting list of “I am’s.”
The deepest illusions are not the ones we tell, but the ones we live. The ones we mistake for ourselves.
The belief that:
- we are independent
- we are broken
- we are special
- we are victims
- we are healers
- we are spiritual
- we are authentic
- we are truthful
Especially that last one.
Because the instant I become attached to the idea that I am an honest person, I have created something that now needs protecting.
A reputation. An identity. A self-image.
And once an identity needs protecting, distortion is already knocking at the door.
Not because I become a liar but because I become invested in seeing myself a certain way. I am invested in maintaining a particular narrative, and invested in being right about that investment!
And now inquiry is no longer free because now there are places I cannot look, questions I do not want asked and possibilities I do not want entertained.
The charade becomes more sophisticated, but it remains a charade.
This is why genuine self-examination is so rare.
Most people are prepared to examine themselves until the examination threatens something they cherish like their innocence, intelligence, goodness, spirituality, victimhood, strength or perhaps their identity as a truth seeker.
Then the inquiry stops because they have reached a border - a place where reality threatens the structure that has organised their existence.
And crossing that border feels like death.
Perhaps that is why so many people spend their lives searching for truth and never find it. Are they just searching for a truth that confirms them?
A truth that reassures and validates, and leaves the self intact.
But reality seems to have very little interest in preserving our favourite ideas about ourselves. Reality dismantles things as readily as it reveals them. It takes away as readily as it gives. It removes certainty, identity and cherished conclusions.
And if we are brave enough, it eventually removes the one thing standing between ourselves and what is real:
The conviction that we already know who we are.
So perhaps the question is not: Am I living authentically?
Perhaps the question could be: How deep am I prepared to go?
How much of what I call “me” am I willing to place under examination?
Which beliefs are exempt?
Which identities are protected?
Which conclusions are sacred?
Because the instant something becomes untouchable, inquiry ends.
And where inquiry ends, distortion begins.
Perhaps authenticity is not loyalty to the self at all.
Perhaps authenticity is the willingness to let every version of the self be questioned; even the beautiful ones, the useful ones, the spiritual ones and the truthful ones. Especially the truthful ones.
Until what remains is not a better identity, but a progressively less distorted relationship with reality.
