Everyday Canvas

Authenticity

Prompt: Be yourself. Everyone else is spoken for. What is your take on this?

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How nice! Certainly, I do agree with this derivative of a saying attributed to what one of my favorite authors Oscar Wilde. “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” If he didn't really say that, Wilde certainly uttered this: “Most people are other people; their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

From the psychological point of view, when a person is being himself, it will be easier for him or her to see what they want out of life and what is truly important to them. To choose the right persons, friends, and environment that would nurture their freedoms would also help such a person to be unique and stay authentic.

Our civilization is in dire need of authenticity and authentic people, not those who are bad copies of others in one way or another. This mimicry--in other words mob behavior--is not only in human nature but also in the nature of animals who live their lives in groups or herds, which makes me think that such a tendency may have been engraved into our genes, at least partly. Mimicking others is the way we learn about life and how to do anything to survive.

Still, that learning has to produce a genuine human being who can think or act for himself eventually. A person’s failing to do so after reaching the age of maturity implies his being a coward.

In addition, progress and evolution are the results of original ideas and inventions by authentic people. Such people, with their own opinions, style, thinking, characters and distinct personalities, add much to the diversity of human beings everywhere.

Another point addresses the general tendency of individuals to disregard their own established principles just to stay out of trouble or public disapproval. This is wearing a social mask, which can also be called hypocrisy. Individuality, on the other hand, can only be formed by not being afraid of making mistakes and learning from them.

Yet, while different kinds of experiences, ideals, and principles nourish the human societies, true authenticity doesn’t mean going against and ridiculing with animosity everything that others revere, either, since authenticity also means respecting the other people’s rights and freedoms to be themselves.