Finding Authenticity in Becoming

Most of us have a shared taste for authenticity, for freedom of expression and for finding new ways to allow our inner self and emotions to come through. 

Belonging to our sense of taste and values is the passionate interest for authenticity as it is perceived in settings of our own fanciful imaginings. The power of emotions and passions felt in such privileged locations illustrate this taste and preference. 

In authentic happenings, life triumphs over repose: the world is awake in its pantheistic view of itself. 

Whether one has a preference for the quiet moment of a morning spent in the presence of self or for a moment shared with others, each and every moment in which we find ourselves is our authentic self in that given moment. The homage we pay to past moments or importance we place on future moments are all held in A moment. This moment is different from this moment and yet they are all moments. As with being, I am me here, and there, and everywhere I go, even though I am a different version of me here, there, and everywhere I go.

Authentically being is as redundant as saying I exist in existence. Authenticity is a matter pertaining to judgment and values. If I like truly enjoy or connect to this moment, I am being my authentic self. If I do not enjoy this moment and wish to connect to a different moment, I am also being my authentic self in my preference and taste for specific moments of being (authentic or otherwise nonexisting).

Perhaps it is not a matter of authenticity for We are what we are (cue Popeye) in every given moment, thus the need for authenticity is as redundant as we are that which we are (as well as that which we seek, though admittedly this is a matter of debate).

I am as authentically me as you are authentically you. I am "me" and you are "you" and perhaps like the fleeting but highly complex trajectories taken by snowflakes on their maiden journey into ever-becoming, we are but the stuff snowflakes (and dreams) are made *of.

Giorgio de Chirico

"The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness may extend. For all ego-consciousness is isolated: it separates and discriminates, knows only particulars, and sees only what can be related to the ego. Its essence is limitation, though it reach to the farthest nebulae among the stars. All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood ... It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it ever so childish, grotesque, and immoral. So flowerlike is it in its candor and veracity that it makes us blush for the deceitfulness of our lives." (C.G. Jung, "The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man" in CW X, par. 304-5)

A dream:

"I'm standing outside on a grassy, gently sloping field. In front of me, slightly higher to the right, a round silver ring hangs in the sky. Floating outward from the ring are 4 pieces of blue, faded slik. I can still see some faded Chinese-looking lettering on it. This is a THESIS. I know with certainty that whatever question it is asked, it will always reply with the only one possible true answer." 

lol

 *until we are something else, somewhere or somewhen else.

Vigor and Grace

French artist - Surrealist Jean-Claude Desplanques

In this post, we examine two seemingly divergent movements: Vigor and Grace. 

In order to explore whether the movements we deem courteous and goodnatured are related to the movements behind effort, energy, and enthusiasm or physical strength and good health, we must first consider each in and of itself prior to its relation to the other.

At first blush, the concepts of Grace and Vigor differ.

Grace is that simple elegance or refinement of movement we associate with an attractive and polite manner of being as well as a talent for behaving in kind.

Detail from Primavera (c. 1482)

Sandro Botticelli

Uffizi Gallery

One of the most recognizable subjects in the history of art, the Three Graces of Greek mythology have been the subject of countless artworks, poems, dances, and musical pieces.

Daughters of omnipotent Zeus, the Graces were broadly considered goddesses of charm, beauty, and creativity.

Aglaea, Euphorsyne, and Thalia embodied the ideals of Beauty, Mirth, and Good Cheer, respectively. The Three Graces were written on by such colossal figures as Homer and Pausanius, and were associated with both the Elusian Mysteries and the cult of the Oracle of Delphi.

Generally depicted as youthful, beautiful women, closely embracing each other or dancing in a circle, these three joyously dancing women whose voluptuous figures recall the fertility of goddesses of ancient love were the ones with whom all romanticized.

The Accolade (1901)

Edmund Blair Leighton (1853-1922)

Private Collection

Of the same nature and ignited by the same human sentiment, whether or not it is delivered in the same tender fashion associated with Grace, exists Vigor...

marked by a sense of robustness, radiance, energy, life, vitality, virility, verve, spirit, zeal, passion, determination, dynamism, and a force de vivre. 

Vigor is the binding force, the validity upon which Grace may rely to determine who and what belongs in one's good (or bad) graces. Those things belonging to the highest human ideals are what we regard with favor, those things that fall short are what we regard with disfavor.

Vigor personifies the act of bestowal, conferring or presenting an honor, right, or gift upon one who can be entrusted to be in harmony with such an endowment.

Omnia Vincit Amor (The Power of Love in the Three Elements) (1809)

Benjamin West (1738-1820)

The Met

The sentiment from which Grace and Vigor  arise is the sentiment that enables us to creatively plan life in ways that maintain an equilibrium - a dynamic, ever-adjustable balance between the exigencies of the three sides of life ~ to meet the challenges of survival, creative passion, and higher destiny.

Grace and Vigor foster the creative planning of human existence in all its many threads that we call "discovery".

In our postmodern period, we are constantly extending our creativity forth in an ontogenesis of being and at the same time a creative differentiator known as authenticity.

In this respect and along this line of thinking, according to which life is the measure of all things, the ideas of Vigor and Grace are both signifiers and justifers of life, of continuous individual development, and of self-consistent personalities.

Vigor and Grace belong to that continuous flux in which interconnectedness, interrelations, and reciprocal exigencies take place. The stable elements belonging to the bridge that connects a living individual to the shifts of identity that constantly yield a state of beingness and becoming.