Authenticity

Wed Jun 04 2025

I.

I have come to the conclusion of late that in order to truly experience your own reality for what it actually is, you need to be wholly authentic. To yourself.

But it’s a tricky thing, this. It’s not an on/off state, you’re not either authentic or not. The way I see it is that true authenticity is always the support structure for whatever is projected outward, sometimes it’s just filtered (for various reasons)…the whole, true deal is never what just leads in interactions. It reveals itself in time, based on various factors like comfort, safety, etc.

Does this make you inauthentic? A liar? I don’t think so. Authenticity is not an external-facing directive…at least, it shouldn’t necessarily be. It’s facing inward.

Authenticity isn’t external but structural. It’s what remains when nothing needs to be projected.

Are you authentic with yourself? About who you are? About what you believe? Do you know why you believe what you believe? I used to think I did.

It turns out that being authentic is more about being honest with yourself than being honest with others. If you are truly honest with yourself about yourself for long enough,it wouldn’t even make sense to be dishonest with others, it just wouldn’t be on the menu.

II.

We all lie to ourselves. Multiple times a day, sometimes multiple times in a moment…most of the time we don’t even realise it. It’s part of our fabric, culture, external influences, belief systems like religion, politics, etc. We are constantly lying to ourselves about who we are, for some, the extent is much greater than for others.

Self-deception is a constant. It is layered and invisible while active. Most of it runs pre-conscious, inherited, and unexamined.

Discovering these lies is what sparks true authenticity to develop, because it has to stand in contrast to something.

Don’t think it’s a bad thing. These ‘lies’ we tell ourselves, or let’s rephrase it, call them ‘false beliefs’, the false beliefs that we hang on to about who we are, are permeated in some cases across the full human experience.

We’re not talking about moral failures here. Call them what they are: false constructs. Inherited beliefs, encoded as ‘truth’, reinforced by everything around you every day of your life, until you decide to interrupt them.

For instance: “you are not enough unless…” ← you can fill about a hundred different things in after that sentence starts. We all know them.

So why do we still choose to believe it? Because it is expected from us, probably.

But by who?

Another belief system?

Or do we expect it from ourselves, and if so, why?

Why do we still believe it? Because it’s been installed, and because we’ve stopped questioning who wrote the program, and why.

III.

The danger of inauthenticity (apart from the ‘social scorn’ for being a liar…the shame, guilt and rejection that is the price to pay for lying, or more like getting caught lying…) is not in projecting a fabrication out into the world, the danger is in what happens with your perception of your own reality.

What you believe about yourself is what determines your experience of the environment and people around you. And this changes everything.

The reason why it is important to be authentic is not because it is noble, honorable, expected or good, it’s because if you’re not, you’re living a hell of your own making, effectively ‘lying’ together an entirely different version of reality and it determines the quality of your life.

From the musical TIME in the 80’s, Akash said it: “For the quality of your life is brought about by the quality of your thinking. Think about that. Thoughts produce actions. look at what you are thinking, see the pettiness and the envy and the greed and the fear… If your thinking is in order your words will flow directly from the heart…”

Authenticity is being open about yourself, with yourself - no dishonesty. No self delusion. It is fucking hard to do. But is living any other way really worth it?