"We
human beings,
we're kind of
wired to be admired.
We want to look good. We want people to think well of us. And so we
try to be authentic. We try to be real with each other because one of
the things that everybody knows is admired by others, is if you're
authentic - if you're kind of a phony, you know nobody's going to
admire you. So we want to be authentic. The beginning of all
authenticity is to be authentic about your inauthenticity. And that's
how you start to get an honest view of yourself."
I am indebted to Udi Ipalawatte and to Wayne Hynd who inspired this
conversation.
That which called me to the subject material of this essay which
purports to differentiate between being sincere and / or being
authentic, did so neither to distinguish sincerity nor authenticity
per se, both of which merit
attention
given that both are manifest qualities of great
human beings.
Rather, what called me was the challenge of bringing forth
distinctions itself - and not just those two distinctions:
any distinctions. In the matter of
being human,
there are ways we are, there are ways we aren't, there are ways we
strive to be (indeed there are ways we strive not to be).
"Sincere" and "authentic" are two such examples of these. Who are the
custodians of these qualities, I ask? Who speaks for what they are? Who
says what they are? Who defines what they are?
One obvious answer is:
the writers
of our dictionaries. Ordinarily if I want to know what it means to be
sincere, or if I want to know what it means to be authentic, I would
look it up in the dictionary. But there's a bigger issue here beyond
merely looking up definitions in a dictionary. It's: do
the writers
of the dictionary stand in / come from being transformed? If they
don't, then whatever they distinguish will be couched in different
language than if they do. And if they don't, then to whom do I turn for
definitions of distinctions grounded in transformation? ie do
the writers
of dictionary definitions deploy narrative language (which
merely describes) or generative language (which brings
forth / elicits / distinguishes a tangible experience of that which is
being defined)?
In this genre, there's no one for me to turn to other than myself. Dare
I go toe-to-toe with the venerable
Oxford English Dictionary
and / or the
Cambridge International Dictionary
(to cite but two) in coming up with distinctions carrying
transformation's heft, beyond their mere colloquial usage? As an
exercise, I chose two distinctions, "being sincere" and "being
authentic" as we colloquially deploy them to see if I could
rewrite
them anew with
a transformative base.
Definition
sincere
adjective
not pretending or lying, being honest about feelings or behavior
<unquote>
The
Cambridge International Dictionary
proposes that being sincere, is "not pretending or lying, being honest
about feelings or behavior" (I'll add "[my]" since the bailiwick of
being sincere can't include me being honest about your
feelings - to which I have no
access).
It implies that being sincere, is saying what's really true for
me. And the issue I take with it without
a transformative base,
is: if it's only true for me, then is it really true at all?
Isn't what's true, true for everyone? If being sincere is not
pretending or lying, being honest / saying what's really true [for me]
about [my] feelings or behavior, wouldn't it abut being inauthentic
until I could expand it (speak it) so that it includes what's true
for everyone? (until then, it would be being sincere
inauthentically).
Definition
authentic
adjective
if something is authentic, it's real, true, what people say it is
<unquote>
As a narrative dictionary definition of "authentic", "if something is
authentic, it's real, true, what people say it is" is good. Yet there's
a consideration which this definition doesn't abut (which renders it
not generative), and it's: what
access
do I have to being authentic (without which, this definition is merely
a postulation)? How could I
rewrite
the dictionary definition of "authentic" so it generates an experience
of being authentic, more than merely describes one?
With that taken into account, here are my proposed
rewrites
of the dictionary definitions of "sincere" / "being sincere", and
"authentic" / "being authentic".
Definition
sincere
adjective
when I'm being sincere, I'm not pretending or lying, I'm being
honest about [my] feelings and behavior,
the access
to all of which is saying what's true [for me] (not necessarily
what's true period)
Definition
authentic
adjective
when I'm being authentic, I'm being real, I'm being true, I'm being
who and what I say I am,
the access
to all of which is being authentic about where I'm being
inauthentic
<unquote>
All of that taken together reveals that the difference between being
sincere and being authentic, is when I'm being sincere, I'm being
faithful to my own truth but I don't challenge my own
insincerity, whereas when I'm being authentic, I'm being faithful to
truth itself and I challenge my own inauthenticity.
