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Tag: authenticity

  • Theme:

    Expanding The Real

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    1–2 minutes

    What if every time we refer to “reality,” it creates a perspective shift? (We must determine our frame for perception to engage in contemplation.)

    This means we can no longer fully comprehend what is in front of us and are limited to appearances, which are further determined by our perspectival position. This means actual reality is ungraspable, shifting “reality” into a symbolic stand-in, i.e., The Real.

    The issue becomes not what you are looking at but the position(s) from which you consider.

    This implies that, retroactively, things previously dismissed offer new insights as you gain perspectives over time, implying that The Real draws closer to its namesake as we expand.

    This means we gain understanding not from closure or singularity but from excessive multiplicity of positionality.

    (This is possibly very incorrect.)

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    Community is a stance, not a standard

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    1–2 minutes

    Community is not formed by adherence or conformity to a norm per se, but by aligning yourself with the others emotional state and accommodating decision-making, a utilitarian meshing of mutual recognition, which must happen authentically.


    Community is not a standard, but a stance.

  • Theme:

    Asking the question: the myth of the authentic self

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    1–2 minutes

    When you ask yourself anything, you are already shaping and imagining an outcome into which you will lean. By asking, we instill a manipulative motivation undermining what might be the "authentic" you. On the other hand, the fact that a question arises may be your subconscious means to redirect you to your authentic self.

    This quandary highlights the impossibility of finding an "authentic core" unmediated by the dictates of survival, which is based on external context. The more you engage in the world the more "compromised" your "self" becomes, but this alteration is precisely what makes the resultant self something beneficial and worth having.

  • Theme:

    Navigating the Authenticity Dilemma

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    1–2 minutes

    What path do you take when your authentic thoughts and opinions (your unique point of view) will alienate your audience?

    The predicament feels binary: stay true to yourself and risk being ostracized, or compromise yourself to maintain the audience and personal relationships. Any no-win scenario becomes a tautology. Compromising or silence is equally non-authentic, and thus not creatively productive.

    This seems to be the goal of a double-bind or double-blackmail: to regulate through loss.

  • Theme:

    Prior Understanding

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    1–2 minutes

    Before we understood the science of harmonics, we instinctively knew about octaves. For example, the note of A was recognized with two common octaves before we named it. Using science, we confirmed our perception: we discovered the halving of octave frequencies (880 Hz to 440 Hz).

    This embodied knowledge -our body as a tuning fork- can pick up on realities beyond our mental cognition, yet it does not make these realities mystical. What does seem magical, indeed mysterious, is the ability of notes in sequence to create an altered state in humans.

  • Theme:

    Poverty of information

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    1–2 minutes

    We live in the information era, but we are also mediated by architecture and platforms that filter, moderate and act as a go-between.

    With automated systems in our cars, regulated health, and safety mandated at every instant we are buffered from experiencing direct reality.

    We experience a gluttony of inputs, but a poverty of genuine feedback from reality.

  • Theme:

    Repeat daily snags

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    1–2 minutes

    I don’t change my behavior; I keep wondering why the world isn’t working the way my perfect routine is mapped out.

    I keep hitting the same snags and think I am having a bad day.

    But I’m not thinking: I am not attending to reality, and it is confronting me in more and more painful ways.

  • Theme:

    Mono-answer fragility

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    1–2 minutes

    A mono-answer is when all problems lead to one overarching issue, i.e., capitalism.

    Similar to a monoculture (where one crop is grown to the exclusion of bio-diversity, creating a fragile ecosystem susceptible to blight), the mono-answer’s simplicity is vulnerable to collapse with one argument.

    Reality is complex and by artificially simplifying it, we simplify our faculty for understanding and leave ourselves blind (from hyper-myopia.)

    Unfortunately, complex thinkers are dangerous and often alienated. Allies do not want you to have more than one answer; they need you to be predictable to pretend stability through consensus.

  • Theme:

    Initial insight is a reversal, but not wisdom

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    1–2 minutes

    “Forgiving others isn’t for them, but a gift to ourselves,” or “your anger at me reveals your anger at yourself,” are shared insights that are a reversal of our initial reaction.

    We take the image, flip it, and reflect it back to reveal a hidden dynamic.
    The flaw is to assume insight is wisdom: we have just created a new image. We must remember that images and mirrors are flattened realities unable to contain the complexity of reality.

  • Theme:

    Truth includes doubt

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    1–2 minutes

    How you make a good decision must come from a process that acknowledges the realities of the world.

    Since the world is not perfectly predictable, our models of reality (our truth and beliefs) must incorporate a version of unsureness (unknowing, confusion).

    The more absolute a belief, the further from the truth it will guide you.

    However, the inverse is not viable either: pure doubt does not lead to truth. It is the belief in truth (or fact) that allows us to judge and dismiss falsity, to understand the discord of a contradiction.