Split: Authentic and Inauthentic

"When you left me, I left Earth. Does that not show you I care?"
from the graphic novel, Watchmen

I finished a instant message chat with my ex-girlfriend (2005-2006), and after our chat I realized since our "split" I have lost some of my authenticity. Rather, I denied some of my ability to be genuine. I think I did so out of fear. I feared...I think I feared it-wasn't-worth-it. I think I feared grief; and somehow I connected authenticity with grief.

I thought that if I denied my authenticity, then any experience of loss would not amount to grief, because the loss would not be an authentic loss. I think the inauthentic loss is in direct relationship to behaving and experiencing an inauthentic life. I believe I imitated being genuine. I was playing politics with myself.

Playing politics is living a double live, a divided life. The double life was one of authenticity and sincerity, which I had suppressed; and the other side was the mask of playing a role which disguised the despair of fearing authenticity.

As Soren Kierkegaard wrote in Sickness unto Death, "A person in despair wants despairingly to be himself. But surely if he wants despairingly to be himself, he cannot want to be rid of himself. Yes, or so it seems. But closer observation reveals the contradiction to be still the same. The self which, in his despair, he wants to be is a self he is not (indeed, to want to be the self he truly is, is the very opposite of despair)" (p. 50).

* * *

I am not going to go into a manifesto over what is my true self.

* * *

I believe my fear of being authentic was a response to trauma. I had traumatized myself by believing that if I choose to not be authentic I could ground my certainty I will not experience grief. However, there are two sides to every coin, and if you don't not have heads there is no tails, hence there is no coin. Similarly, without the experience of grief there may be no experience of pleasure--authentic pleasure.

What I learned from chat with the "ole ex" was:
1) I care about her. I care, and that is such a huge feeling. I learned my care does not have to be selfish, as it once was when I was "in love".
2) I learned I have something to offer, that was and is still valued (in some way).
3) No matter how others change, my authenticity (even in the midst of my own change) is something that is pleasing, and can not cause grief.
4) I also feel very gratified she and I were able to chat (although I don't entirely prefer the internet chatting system) and shared what was on our minds, and then said goodbye.
5) I can say goodbye, and feel the 'bye' is actually good.

Dim Illumination

Last night I watched the movie "Adaptation" with a girl, who is a friend of mine. She left my place at about 11pm. When she left I began to think about what I wanted to do until I went to bed. I sat in front of my computer, flipping back and forth between websites. I thought about reading a book. I turned off the light to my room, and without changing from my day's clothes, I crawled into bed. Very shortly afterward I fell asleep.
It is now 9:30 am. I am in the same clothes I wore yesterday and slept in, I am still in the same chair I was in last night, and mindlessly surfing the internet. Only now I am writing a blog about the mundanity of my life.
You (the reader) and I (the writer) are now lead to the present moment (only the present moment will be no longer "my present moment" when you read this).

My room is dark with a light blue glow from the morning shadowed light bending around the objects between my bedroom and the sun. The funny thing is even though the sun is low in the sky, at high noon my bedroom will not be much more light than it is now. Why is that funny? I draw humor from it because I am amused by the fact that the universe can shift, the earth is rotating, and in many (or most) places in the world the earth's rotation causes a drastic shift in how much light is received and perceived. These places become illuminated by the earth's rotation. Despite my bedroom becoming pitch black at night and slightly more illuminate during the day, there is not a drastic shift in the amount of light that enters my bedroom.

Just as I lulled last night, thinking about what to do; I wake this morning in a similar state. (I have plenty of things to do...and not all I want to do right now, and some I don't even like thinking about doing.) Yet, to use the metaphor of my bedroom's positional capacity to receive the illuminate qualities of the sun's relationship to the earth's rotation, at times I also position myself in such a way I limit my capacity to receive the illuminating qualities of the sun's relationship with the earth's rotation.

At moments I dim my ability to be illuminated. I obscure my mind and senses causing myself to not "lighten up." It is not so much I become serious, but lethargic, hence my position limits by capacity to receive illumination. However, this is of course more disposition-al than positional. And at times our disposition affects our position.

It is now 10am.
(I intend to stop writing without a "conclusion". So rather than feeling like the writing is unresolved, I encourage you to feel the writing is open-ended.)