I love the word authentic. When you walk into an Outback Steakhouse its meaning hits you right in the face.
- Genuineness: Why is an actual canvas painted by Van Gogh worth so much more than a perfect reproduction? Why is a piece of paper worth something because it’s signed by Albert Einstein? After all it was his ideas which transformed the world rather than the paper on which they were written down.
- Existential Truth: Pick up a hammer. If it’s well made and balanced it’s perfect in a way few things are. It fits into your hand. It’s the right length. It wonderfully expresses the nature of it’s function. You hit something with it, and the force of your arm is applied exactly. The nail is driven into the wood. If there’s one other thing on the hammer it is a tool – the claw – for removing a badly driven nail. Now that’s not to say that some other tool couldn’t be better at nailing. The nailgun exists, after all. But the nailgun, unlike the hammer, does not embody a utilitarian, existential truth.
A confession: I’ve never actually been to an Outback Steakhouse. I’ve seen them and I’ve been to the Italian version, run by the same country. So I’m imagining it’s lack of authenticity, and from such shaky ground I want to make a quick segue to the days when I was renovating a vegetarian restaurant. In the way that you do, I constructed an elaborate and detailed plan for a restaurant called “The Cafeteria”. It would serve sausages and lumpy mashed potatoes with overcooked vegetables, from bain maries. It would be staffed by bored middle aged women in plastic aprons with half smoked cigarettes dangling from their lips. They would call all the customers “luv”.
It would be as inauthentic as the Steakhouse. But where that serves food that people presumably like, and the faux-outback decor exists as a marketing tool, the food at The Cafeteria would not be a drawcard: people would go there only because of their fond memories of actual, authentic cafeterias in the past. You see I think people crave authenticity at the same time as it’s being crushed out of the existence. Instead we sit in front of our gas fires made with plastic logs to look like open fireplaces, and watch “60 Minutes” reenact a crime scene with actors while we drink Bud-lites and eat “can’t believe it’s not Butter” on our Wonderbread. [NB: Thank you Celestina for that concept, it prompted me to try and crystalize something which had been floating half formed in the back of my mind - this article.]
I’m arguing that a thing is authentic if it is what it pretends to be. If it’s sincere and direct. And I’m not the first apply this to create the idea of the authentic life.
People crave it desperately, but subconsciously. That’s why the Van Gogh and Einstein’s autograph are worth so much – rich people hope this authenticity will rub off on them. But it’s scary because it’s about being yourself, naked and unadorned. So instead we live fake lives. We have fashion rather than style. We have shock-jocks rather than revolution. We play World of Warcraft rather than being adventurous. We become obsessed with sex rather than allowing ourselves to love.
To what extent do you live according to society’s expectations for what is good and right? To what extent are your choices your own? Now no one exists in a vacuum, and a person’s history and environment shapes their attitudes and perspective. But some people accept this without question, and some people examine and think through and try to pull from amongst it their own truth and their own understanding. Likewise again some people just are, from the beginning, themselves, in the same way that a hammer is a hammer.
It doesn’t mean that being unconventional gives a life integrity. Some of the most genuine people I’ve ever met, most true to themselves, are also the most ordinary. But I do think that authentic people are passionate. They care. They love, although not always in the “Hallmark Cards” sort of way. Like a hammer, such a person is what he or she is. There’s no mistaking the genuine article.