How Can I Become More Authentic?
How Can I Become More Authentic?
Five philosophers offer their opinions.
We asked young people what their most burning philosophical questions are. In order to answer them, we went and asked some of today’s leading thinkers.
What percentage of our personalities is our authentic selves vs. a persona we just invented? How can I become more authentic?
- Rob
James Tartaglia, Keele University, UK
We need to invent personas to get on in life – the caring son, the fun-loving friend, the trustworthy employee, etc. But the fact that they’re all, to some extent, invented (a lot of it is just copying other people) doesn’t necessarily make them inauthentic. The true authentic ‘you’ is the persona you most identify with, the one you like, the one you think lies at the root of the caring son, fun-loving friend, and trustworthy employee. You can find that ‘you’ by reflecting on your own nature and changing the traits you aren’t satisfied with.
Stephen Stern, Gettysburg College
I turn to David Hume for this answer: we are nothing but a bundle of perceptions. How to create a good bundle of perceptions? Choose to hang with those who worry about obligations, others, so to speak. Stay away from the greedy.
Lewis Coyne, author of Hans Jonas: Life, Technology and the Horizons of Responsibility
There are two assumptions behind this question that I'd gently push back on - and in doing so, what's puzzling you will hopefully be dissolved. The first is that your self can be quantified, as though it's liquid in a bottle: instead, it might be more accurate to think of yourself as a process of constant incremental change and development, wending through life. The second assumption I'd question is the hard distinction between what's authentically you versus something you just adopted. It's possible, for example, to take on a persona that better reflects your core values and what you think matters in life (think of Bruce Wayne/Batman!) - and this would, in an important sense, count as authentic.
Steven Gimbel, Gettysburg College
18.735%. Actually, it is a false dilemma. We decide who we are, and that decision is often affected by the lived context. Because you act differently with your childhood friends than with your romantic partner and yet differently with your work associates does not mean that you are wearing a false mask or being inauthentic. We are multifaceted beings with very different elements to ourselves.
Allow yourself to be as complex as you are. All of these stances toward the world can be very different and yet still fully authentic. Of course, this does not mean that we can't pretend to be something we are not, and that can be a form of lying, but simply because an aspect of you is intentionally invented does not mean that it is a false self. It is just a new part of you that you are exploring. We grow and change, that does not make us inauthentic. It makes us interesting.
Grant Maxwell, author of Integration and Difference: Constructing a Mythical Dialectic
For Gilles Deleuze and James Hillman, our Self is composed of numerous, often dissonant, powers and persons. We are all born with particular relations of these transcendental persons, which constitute our destiny, not as pre-given fate but as lures for feeling. The task of human life is to consciously express these relational persons in a creative and constructive way, so in this sense, authenticity is creatively inventing oneself. The alternative is to unconsciously submit to the roles and norms prescribed by one’s culture and circumstances.
Other posts in this series:
What is the Best Way to Aquire Happiness?
Can We Redesign the Aggressive Nature of Human Beings?
Why Do Things That Are Bad For Us Often Feel So Good?