Authenticity

Published on July 2016 | Categories: Documents | Downloads: 42 | Comments: 0 | Views: 204
of 3
Download PDF   Embed   Report

Essay about authenticity

Comments

Content

446063
Mr. Ayres
World Lit. 3
16 March 2016
The Existential Crisis
In a world in which being a carbon copy of someone else, and wandering
aimlessly with no sense of identity are social norms. The government wants people to be
complacent, yet expendable contorting and twisting you in ways that are inhumane like a
puppet master strings along a marionette. There is a void, an emptiness that no amount of
wealth, or love of material things can suffice. How does one go about living an authentic
existence? It begins to blossom once you are self reliant, and do not value other people’s
opinions because you posses the knowledge of self worth. Not letting society or anyone
else define who you are, or tell you what your capabilities are, once you come to terms
that the only opinion of you that matters but your own.
The book The Fall written by Albert Camus, who is an existentialist, creates a
protagonist Jean-Baptiste who is confessing the many flaws in his character, which make
him inauthentic. Within the pages of the book Jean-Baptiste is trapped, he can’t bring
himself to have faith, to really believe that salvation is possible for mankind, but he also
can’t bring himself to abandon hope entirely. In one sense, he "knows" that redemption
isn’t coming, but in another sense, he desperately wishes it could he exclaimed, “Look,
it’s snowing! Oh, I must go out! Amsterdam asleep in the white night, the dark jade
canals under the little snow-covered bridges, the empty streets, my muted steps – there
will be purity, even if fleeting, before tomorrow’s mud. See the huge flakes drifting

against the windowpanes. It must be the doves, surely. They finally make up their minds
to come down, the little dears; they are covering the waters and the roofs with a thick
layer of feathers; they are fluttering at every window. What an invasion”… it is evident,
that no one has the right to judge anyone else, because Mother Earth is tainted with filth.
The people who inhabit her wallow in the disgusting waste, that surrounds them,
becoming grotesque and reek of self- entitlement, and denial. Leaving behind all decency
and morality they once might have had, but the denial is a parasite, a cyst that feeds off of
personality, thoughts, everything that make an individual special, leaving behind a living
corpse, that is rotted and withered. Your mind becomes susceptible to the poison of the
words of others distorting the opinion of yourself to match theirs. If you pay no attention
to the negative comments it is going to create an unbreakable confidence.
Jean-Baptiste said “A mask, in short, rather like those carnival masks which are
both lifelike and stylized, so that people say: Why surly I’ve met him.” A mask conceals
your true features from the world, but it entices people because it’s a façade it might
shield you from the scrutiny of others, but will it make you any happier? No, there is no
gratification, people praising you for showing off a fake you. In the poem The Madman it
embodies this idea" I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the
first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed
with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried,
"Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks. Thus I became a madman. And I
have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the
safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us. But
let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.”

This poem is all about authenticity at first the man is riddled with fear that his masks are
gone because it gave him a sense of identity. When the sun warms his face for the first
time he cam into his own becoming a so called “madman” a word that has a negative
diction, but embracing it, because that who he was meant to be and all the towns people
fade away because their opinions are no longer relevant.
A TED talk presented in class said something to the affect of our roles in life don’t
make us who we are. We tend to base our idea of who we are on everyday roles such as
parents and spouse or even what we do in our jobs or what qualifications we have. We
even go to the extent of changing our personas in different social situations & acting out
of character because we think we have to. Realize that by acting in this way you are not
being you at your deepest level. When you begin to use the following steps to become
your authentic self you will begin to experience the benefits of a happier life.
The reflexivity of the phenomenon of authenticity requires, then, that we be
always committed to the continuous process of honest Self-discovery. The danger when
our true self is hidden from us by denial. Often this denial is the result of the fact that we
want to be as honest as possible, yet we are acting under the influence of a commitment
to some group, nation, religion, and football team. We must hide from ourselves, the fact
that we are speaking or acting in a way that is actually in conflict with the things we think
we believe in. Denial rescues us from the cognitive dissonance, but renders us no longer
an impartial judge.

Sponsor Documents

Or use your account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Forgot your password?

Or register your new account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link to create a new password.

Back to log-in

Close