Authenticity

 What is authentic?  This is the question, among others, that occupied my mind when I decided to enter the forests, prairies, valleys and waterfalls of Charleston Falls Preserve in January of 2013.  I went in without any tangible idea of what I was doing or what I would discover.  Although I didn’t realize it at the time, a specific desire, in fact the reason I endeavored to enter Charleston Falls, did walk through the entrance with me.

Saying I didn’t have any preconceived notions is a bit untrue.  I had read and admired the writings and philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other transcendentalists.  In my opinion they tapped into the same desire, I strongly believe, each person has within them, the desire for the authentic.  People have and will continue to call this desire by different names; what is real, enlightenment, truth, peace, genuine, and so on, but what they are all essentially about at their core is authenticity.  What drove Thoreau to enter Walden Pond and stay for two years, two months, and two days?  He sought the authentic.  

It doesn’t matter what time period we happen to live or consider in our hypothetical conversations, anyone who has lived in a time period involving human society can relate to the feeling of unconscious imitation permeating into the way we think, act, and feel from society.  The feeling of countless human interpretation built up over thousands of years that have been shaping attitudes, ways of thinking, acting, and feeling, and which defines the rules and makeup of society.  Seeing people unconsciously conform their behavior to a range of normalcy, that seems and feels like each person has a public persona that can be described as enforced normalcy.  In a world we live in today, or the world Thoreau lived in, how can we weed through the seemingly countless layers of years of human interpretation to discover the truth, the uninterpreted truth?  How can we disentangle and remove the behaviors and ways of thinking forced on us unconsciously by society?  How can we remove all of that to get to a base, where we can then consciously choose what will influence and affect us?  In short how can we live an authentic life?

All these questions and the quest for the authentic are what motivated Thoreau to enter Walden Pond.  He sought to remove himself from society to enough of a degree to allow independent thought and contemplation.  This involved periods with minimal to no contact with other human beings, in order to achieve minimal human interpretation on his thoughts.  But what environment could offer that type of seclusion from human interpretations?  Any place with human cohabitation would be out of the question.  For Thoreau and the transcendentalists they turned to nature.  They saw nature as the least interpreted environment available on earth and thus, one which to learn from and discover wisdom.  For Thoreau and the American transcendentalists, there was much virgin land around from which to explore, experience, and from which learn.  Nature was free of human interpretation of any kind, especially in the relatively recently discovered and sparsely populated North American continent.  It merely existed.  This was an environment the transcendentalists could study and learn from.  Applying the lessons they learned from nature to human society.  Not only did nature offer a respite from society, but it was a classroom from which to engage in learning.  A place free of human interpretation to study how beings in nature interacted with each other and from which to draw insights.  To the traditionally religious, studying nature offered a path closer to God.  Undisturbed nature remained as God had created it, how God had intended the world to function.  The lessons gleamed from nature would be lessons learned from God, that was free from years of built up human interpretation layered on taking into account countless petty human agendas.  The authentic meaning of God  What nature offered was the chance at something real, something uninterpreted, something authentic.

The search for the authentic in nature by Thoreau and the transcendentalist really isn’t any different than the Beat movement, the 60’s counterculture, the modern day hipsters movement, or what each and every one of us in our daily lives, many without realizing, seek in our pursuit of what is cool.  At the end of the day, when one deconstructs each movement down to its core, they are all after authenticity.  Each movement differed only in what it used and the methods for finding the authentic.  The Beats were on a perpetual search for the authentic, constantly traveling across the country and the world after what they sought.  Not shying away from any experience or the pain it brought, in order to feel what was real.  Fighting corporate intentional human interpretation forced on the population by Madison Avenue.  The Beats utilized the same process, trying to remove the layers of human interpretation to arrive at the truth, authentic reality.  The 60’s counterculture, born out of the placid 50’s, sought to change society and the world for the better.  Change into what?  They wanted to change society into something more humanistic, less contrived, in essence more authentic.  More authentic in regards to the relations between people and one another, because surely brother love was authentically human.  They sought to tear down all the layers of human interpretation that were making the world so despondent, producing institutional and personal racism, profit driven greed, and desire for power.  Regardless of your thoughts on the depth of their analysis or their assumptions, it is undeniable they were going through the process of removing layers of perceived human interpretation to get to a more authentic society and way of living, often with the use of drugs. 

]Although the Beats and the 60’s counterculture were the two most prominent and readily identifiable compatriots of the transcendentalists, each one of us living today who has ever desired something, worn something, purchased something, or gone out with someone motivated by the fact that it or they were ‘cool,’ is also searching for the authentic.  I strongly suspect that what is at the heart of how we define what is ‘cool’ in our modern vernacular is exclusivity.  Each ‘cool’ item or event has, on vary degrees of depth, an element of exclusivity.  It is no coincidence that name brand items, which are often considered more desirable than others, are often more expensive than others.  Expensive things in general are exclusive because relatively few can afford to own them.  This effect produces many knock off industries; leather, handbags, watches, etc., which leads to certificates of authenticity and the often asked question, ‘is this authentic?’  The exclusivity of monetary barriers to entry has resulted in the search for the authentic.  Even more exclusive than high priced items are items or experiences that have been created specifically for people, also known as original content.  A song, poem, a work of art, a joke etc.  What could be more exclusive than an original creation that has never been produced or done before?  That humans have never experienced before?  Also, what could be more authentic that original content?  All of which we define as cool.  Why do we find creative people attractive?  Why are we attracted to people who can make us laugh with original humor?  Why are we attracted to musicians, writers, comedians, and actors?  They all create original content.  Perhaps we are seeking the authenticity in other people.  The authenticity sought after by Thoreau and the transcendentalists is pursued by each and every one of us today.  

Then of course there are the faux-anti-authentic seekers in the world.  The people who seek after and relish what is not cool, what is ‘common.’  But in a world where everyone is seeking what is cool, what could be more exclusive, and hence cool, then seeking the opposite of what everyone else is seeking, the uncool?  In this sense does the search for the uncool have a degree of authenticity about it?  Defining what is uncool as the opposite of cool, doesn’t achieve a detachment from cool, because what is uncool is still defined in relation to what is cool, what is authentic.  Which is still the game we are all playing, what is authentic?   

Seeing the Horizon 

      

However, each movement was and is, in a certain sense, a double edged sword, capable of wandering away from its original intentions, consuming its members.  Within each movement are contained the potential seeds of its own downfall.  Like almost anything, one can become so consumed with the movement, ideas, or process that the end result is circular and ultimately becomes about the movement.  The original goals of those who set out upon their journey become superseded and consumed by the movement’s ideas and process.  The movement becomes more than a means to achieve a goal or a way of life, it becomes life.  And often when adopting this new life, the movement’s ideas and process, it becomes a means to escape from the world, from the previous life.  The movements devolve into escapism.  Instead of shedding light on the world or changing the world for the better, the movements become about escaping the world.  Many people of the Beat, 60’s counterculture, and modern day hipsters have had their original intentions devolve into escapism.  Many lost sight of their original aim and why they even were doing what they were doing.  The Beats travelled and reflected constantly, but to what aim?  Would you really find the authentic in a new place inhabited by humans?  A new City, a new State, a new Country?  Sure the next place you went would be a new place with new layers of human interpretations not quite the same as the previous place, but where among any human inhabited place, with all its layers of human interpretation and emanating unconscious imitation, could you find authentic?  Could you ever really sift through all the layers of human interpretation to find the authentic needle in the haystack?  It seems they were doomed to travel from place to place, never finding what they sought, never with hope of finding what they sought.  Doomed from the start.  On a perpetual journey which ultimately resulted in escape from human society, place by place.  A movement trapped in perpetual futility, which only Sisyphus could relate too.  

The 60’s counterculture wanted to change the world for the better.  To cut through society’s racism, consumerism, sexism, and all the other ills and forms of intolerance of society to produce a better place, all of which were built on years of human interpretation that produced current intolerances. A very noble and enviable goal.  Using drugs to expand one’s mind or alter the way the world is perceived is not strictly detrimental.  If used properly can be a very powerful tool from which to employ in analysis.  But they also run the danger of allowing one to achieve a type of escape from the world and reality, a perceived separation.  While many view the drug counterculture and drugs themselves as the reason the 60’s counterculture lost sight of their original aim and become about escaping the world they inhabited, I view drugs only as the means for their devolution into escapism, not the reason why.  I don’t pretend to diagnose the ills of the 60’s counterculture or why they descended into escapism, I’ll leave that for those who lived it, myself being born several decades after the fact, but I will offer some thoughts.  To my observation it seemed that the 60’s counterculture did indeed descend from the heights into escapism.  It seems that the movement lacked enough direction and specificity in goals as well as being quite esoteric, to accomplish what they sent out.  Perhaps the safety of numbers played a role.  The 60’s counterculture was a truly massive movement occupying all corners and regions of the United States as well as all socio-economic strata.  With so many people how could it fail, how could it be ignored.  Perhaps there was a sense that their energy and spirit would carry the day, they were in the right, and the right always win, the truth will always come to light.  Without a codified direction or clearly discernable goals, the enormous energy and all its potential was dispersed, unable to bring its full force to bear against all the ills of the world.  After a few years, without the world and society changing with the tidal wave of consciousness, perhaps doubt crept in, is our enormous energy not working?  Escaping the world became all too easy, and it could be hidden intellectually under the idea of guise of expanding one’s mind.  With drugs as an outlet, the 60’s counterculture devolved into escapism.  But escape to where?  A world of your own creation, your own mind, an abstraction, any place tangible?  Without anywhere to go, the energy was channeled into unproductive means, in regards to changing society.  Their idea of creating a more authentic world, in which the evils of human interpretation were brought down, dissipated with their energy.

The Transcendentalists too had the danger of devolving into escapism and many did.  Going into the woods in order to achieve an enlightenment or new understanding carries with it the danger of never leaving the woods, or physically as well as mentally escaping from the word and society.  When venturing out into the intellectual unknown, mark your path and remember why you sojourned in in the first place, otherwise you can get lost in a woods of your own making.                              

So I confess, I did have an abstract notion of what I wanted to find, the authentic, but had no idea of specifically what I would find or if I would find anything at all.  I flirted with becoming lost on several occasions.  I’ll let you be the judge of that.  It is my first attempt and by no means my last.  Hopefully I will improve from what is my infancy with Gonzo-Transcendentalism.  What I discovered may very well be common knowledge to you and seem quite pedestrian, but they were very new and important to me at the time.