The Authenticity Myth Pt. 2. Becoming

Having dealt with the myth that it’s not possible to identify and be our authentic selves because we are always our authentic selves, in Pt 1., it’s time to go deeper.

The key to understanding the problem of “self” is temporality. “Self” occurs at any and every moment, it is not searchable, it is not identifiable, and it is not to be nailed down, and acted out. Self is also not something which belongs to us, each person encountering us gives us their experience of us, and it belongs to them, not us. Try as we might to project what we would like people to experience, we only have influence, never control. Further, the falsity which leaks from people trying to exert such influence negates the effort.

There is no getting away from the Heraclitean analysis of a world in constant flux, where the only constant is change and Nietzschean development of becoming as a state of Being. Heidegger, who above all, dealt with Being, wrote the magnum opus Sein und Zeit - Being and Time, in which temporality was necessarily pivotal. We are a range of possibilities at all times, and everyone encountering us has their own experience of that, at all times. This can include some measure of trait, virtue, and predictability both internally and externally, but it is never constant. There is no self to go looking for. If there were, we would be born with it, and it would never change.

Becoming is a psychological and emotional saviour. In my own experience, it has been a revelation. The knowledge of Being as a constant state of becoming can ease, if not free us from “bad thinking” or guilt. This does not mean that we cannot or should not observe and analyze the lessons of experience, thinking experiments, rational induction, and deduction. These can be used without visiting revenge upon ourselves, or at least we should try, so to do. Self-revenge is the damage which our moral social norms inflict upon us. In the “West” this has formed from Christian indoctrination both within the ‘faithful’ and without in secular society. Other cultures and religions have their equivalents – such as shaming ancestors.

Nietzsche is, in fact, a hopeful figure, he warns us of nihilism having “killed God”, because with God there is comfort, even in a Stockholm Syndrome sense. He laments for us. I say there is no need to kill God, but that in keeping with God, we can break free from religion and its dogmatic rules and proclamations. We can participate in Becoming, ever-changing, and whether we understand this from an embodied atheist position or a spiritually aware or agnostic one, it doesn’t matter. Not to grasp and embrace Becoming is to remain at a point of existence and give up on learning and development; experiencing and celebrating knowledge and experience as either it is meant to be, or just ‘is’.

We have developed the Ego as the person and decided it is responsible for thoughts, and deeds. We have given this Egoic entity “freedom” to decide. This freedom is granted for one reason – revenge. If something is deciding with free will, and we don’t like the decision, we can call it ‘wrong’, and punish it. We do this to each other, and we do this to ourselves. Only when we can understand that free will is a construct and can never be true – it is impossible to extract ourselves from the world, or the world from us – can we allow Becoming, and not punish ourselves and others. This is a difficult concept given the pervasiveness of Victorian attitudes (for example), and many religious and cultural acceptances – but difficult does not equate to inaccurate or unachievable.

The ascetic nature of the ‘best’ exponents and followers of religious and societal dogma in isolating themselves from their actual existence, here, and now – searching for a different ‘here and now’ inner stable experience of ‘self’, is a good example of the need for punishment of lived experience. Piety being a more political version of the singular meditative customs.

Learning how to explain everything according to a book and its official interpretation is the problem, and it is the same problem as conforming to social norms in a way which is tribal, separatist, and/ or Nationalist. This is the congenital problem philosophy and philosophers have, they think and argue in circles, ever-decreasing circles. They do not apply consideration of human history beyond what confronts them now, or recently, and they assume this is how humans ‘are’. While it is true that we are our history and historicity, the wise and curious person should pursue the “love of knowledge” beyond this. Doing so shows how whole social systems and norms have changed, let alone ourselves, all the time. We can work from a vast knowledge of constant change to our own.

In Sparta, infanticide was normal, and homosexuality practically compulsory. In Europe only a few generations ago, burning people alive for religious convictions was celebrated.

So, returning to authenticity and becoming – Being as a constant state of flux, as with all things. There are of course anchors over a period of time, as we live within societies and with the knowledge and ideas we have, for periods of time. We will have ideas of virtues, and values, and have made numerous commitments etc. I suggest these anchors are, and should be, more or less deployed in sand. There will be, and should be a dragging of anchors, a change of position and sometimes we may feel we should up-anchor and find a new place. All places are somewhat new, we can make a new place for ourselves by encountering the night, and the day – we will feel and think differently in just these simple, naturally changed situations – watch something frightening, alone, at night – your thoughts will not be the same at they are on a lovely sunny day on the beach.

There is no “self” to find, no stable immutable self, and no essence. We are always “self”, and the self which people give to us at any time is authentically us, to them. It belongs to them, and not to us. What we can do is speak, act, and behave as genuinely as possible, according to the values and virtues we have within us, at a given time. We can strive to make these as automatic and unaffected as possible, according to the best thinking we have. Yes, there are restrictions of society and work for example, there are roles we fulfil for various reasons. However, we need to examine ourselves and the violence and revenge we inflict upon ourselves by play-acting for too long. Everyone sees us for what they see of us anyway, so good luck with exhausting yourself trying to ‘be like’ something.

I encourage everyone to seriously consider Becoming and to ease back on the idea of Being. Being is instantaneous. Who actually exists as a series of photographs… but people do remember the feelings they have of us associated with discrete snapshots… impressions if you will… isn’t that interesting! On that note, this is a topic to explore next time – the idea of Becoming as portrayed not by our temporal Being, but in words, signs, and signals – we might get a bit Wittgenstein about it ??.