Finding an Authentic Existence

Sweet Bites for May 10, 2024

Hi all,

Welcome to another edition of Sweet Bites, Mind Candy’s bite-sized newsletter with thought-provoking finds to send you into the weekend with.

This week we explored the themes of authenticity and essence (links below).

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🦉 Wisdom

“People are desperate for authenticity. Everywhere you look today there's someone lying about something, some organization glossing over the truth, some person not telling it like it is. There's a scarcity of the authentic in our culture.”

Keith Ferazzi
Source: Never Eat Alone

🍰 Quick Slices

🍰 On being authentic in work, even when it’s failing

What do you do when you are working a job you don’t like and cannot stop? Matt Damon is a world famous actor, but it doesn’t mean he himself does not have to deal with the same questions—how do we continue working when we know it isn’t going to work?

“I do pride myself... on being a professional actor. What being a professional actor means is you go and do the 15 hour day and give it absolutely everything even if what you know is going to be a losing effort. And if you can do that with the best possible attitude then you're a pro…”

Sometimes we have to do things even when we know they will not succeed, but built within those moments we begin to see our true selves at work. These are opportunities to lean into ourselves and learn more about who we are.

🍰 On finding the authentic self

Rich Roll started a career as a swimmer but saw it derailed by drugs and alcohol. It would take him a decade to get sober but it wasn’t until he hit 40 that he turned his life around fully. He outlines what it means to live authentically:

“The pursuit of the authentic self… I think it's about really connecting with the truth of who you are and living as integris with that as possible. And when you do that I think the universe sees that and pays attention.”

And when you do that, according to Roll, the universe lays “bricks on the path” that help guide you along your journey.

“The more you honor that, the more likely you are to find evidence in the world to support that. And your only true north is that voice within yourself that you either choose to honor or repress.”

🍰 On the lack of authenticity in today’s celebrity culture

“We are chained to the flickering shadows of celebrity culture, the spectacle of the arena and the airwaves, the lies of advertising, the endless personal dramas, many of them completely fictional…” writes Chris Hedges in Empire of Illusion.

Plato told of this thousands of years ago. We all have a choice: do we wish to see the world for what it is or would we rather blind ourselves with entertainment for our pleasure.

We continue the debate to this day.

Hedges quotes from Daniel Boorstin, writing:

“in contemporary culture the fabricated, the inauthentic, and the theatrical have displaced the natural, the genuine, and the spontaneous, until reality itself has been converted into stagecraft.”

The question we have to ask is the same Plato posed so long ago. To live a good and meaningful life, would we rather see reality for what it is, or spend our days watching falsities for safety and satisfaction?

📚 This Week’s Monday Meditation

✏️ This Week’s Wednesday Wisdom

After last week’s poll, the majority wished to once again receive the Wednesday Wisdom emails so this week, we started up again.

🛠️ Tactic

“Being disengaged is inauthentic because we are responsible for our actions and non-actions alike. In doing nothing, we lose ourselves.”

Skye Cleary
Source: How to be Authentic

One of my first jobs out of college was working at a law firm as a file clerk. New cases would come in and it was my job to index them, create files, and scan any discovery that may have accompanied the claim.