Be Your Authentic Self

This morning I came across a number of writings on Substack about how to go about being one’s own “authentic self.” Authenticity is a very old concept. Socrates wrote “know thyself.” But what does that really mean? I thought I would devote today’s misc. Wednesday thoughts to the idea of being one’s authentic self, including a problematic philosopher’s ideas on the subject, a few awesome 90s pop culture references, and the reason why I should avoid being my authentic self altogether. Thanks for joining me on this moody, self-indulgent brain-dump!

Philosopher Martin Heidegger* wrote about ‘Eigentlichkeit’ which is translated as authenticity but more fully involves how we personally relate to our own self and existence. He theorized that in most of our life, we follow others’ expectations without much thought. We sort of sleepwalk through life as we have been taught, as Heidegger calls ‘das Man,’ which is following societal norms. You can also maybe think of it in a more modern context, from 1995’s most important film Empire Records:

“Damn the man, save the Empire”

For one night, the employees of Empire Records fight back against das Man (societal norms) and attempt to reach something bigger. Gina steps up and sings. AJ declares his love for Corey. Joe follows his passion and saves the store.

Heidegger suggests we can be brought out of this sleepwalk-das-Man existence through confrontation of death and the anxiety that comes from thinking about your own mortality. He doesn’t mean specifically you need a near death experience to wake up, it’s more existential. Perhaps here you could consider the line from the 1996 song "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand" by Primitive Radio Gods:

Am I alive or thoughts that drift away?
Does summer come for everyone?
Can humans do what prophets say?
If I die before I learn to speak
Can money pay for all the days I lived awake
But half asleep?

Heidegger also suggests that one can slide in and out of the anxiety of contemplating your own life and actually trying to be more yourself, and the general going-through-the-motions that seems to happen an awful lot to me. I do indeed live awake but half asleep.

Throw in a little depression, as things have been a struggle lately, and I’ve been thinking that my authentic self actually sucks and I should really try harder to be someone else entirely. Authenticity of self is good if you are a good person. I’m depressed and tired. I make constant missteps at work and in my personal life. I’m often terrible with my interpersonal relationships, constantly doing or saying the wrong thing. I’m not looking for an argument against these feelings. I’ll save that for a future therapy session.

The Substacks I read about authenticity were about how to make sure you’re at least considering your current place in this spectrum of being yourself or being what folks expect you to be. I’m interested in how you feel about your place today, and what changes you’d make to improve your placement on the spectrum. Please share in the comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

*Of course, Heidegger was a f'*cking nazi. I hate seeing any German names when it comes to reading and research. Because of course they were all nazis, or at least somehow survived living in Germany during nazi times so either they were incredibly lucky to not get caught up in their anti-nazi work or they at least tacitly supported the movement and kept quiet. When you are thinking if you should speak out about Trump and Putin and modern authoritarianism today, consider how you will be remembered in the future. F*cking nazis. In a palate cleanser, you should check out Heidegger’s student Hannah Arendt who was Jewish, and her works regarding how normal people become complicit in evil, which is covered in her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.