Authentic Orange

Submitted by Maxwell Beaudoin

Upon my first arrival at OSU (just last fall), I found my school spirit to be somewhat offsetting. I had this feeling that I was simply faking the feelings of school pride because I had been sold the feeling from others during orientation. Since then, I have continued to question my feelings, and more importantly, the motives behind those feelings. I was initially pursuing identity as an existentialist (Lecture 5-19-2015) here in Corvallis. I was basically trying to force myself into feeling like I belong. I was trying to find an authentic impulse from within, but as we learned, “I can neither seek within myself for an authentic impulse to action, nor can I expect, from some ethic, formulae that will enable me to act” (Satre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, pg. 9-10). Diving deeper into Satre’s comment, his reasoning holds true for many actions that we as humans participate in, such as: trying to love someone; going to class (on sunny days especially); playing new sports. Those are all actions that I have definitely done in the past, and from experience I know it is ultimately impossible to create an authentic desire for an action that was originally not desired. This is one thing that Satre could have been referring to as an inauthentic impulse that we as humans sometimes try and create.

From this, I draw the conclusion that it is impossible to be a Beaver, authentically. Instead, you must become a Beaver without any realization of change, or you must metaphysically earn your experience as a Beaver (Lecture 5-26-2015)

Change is something that I have been particularly intrigued with lately, especially considering the changes I have made since last year. While people do change authentically in themselves (i.e. changing beliefs; morals; ethics; or motives), I believe that the action of change is by definition inauthentic because you are forcing yourself to do something differently than you are used to. Essentially, you’re denying your transcendence (Lecture 5-26-15). However, inauthentic actions can lead to an authentic result.

When I moved to Corvallis, I chose to live in a dorm, to go to classes that I had never been to, and to change the habits that I had made prior to the transformation. After 10 months of adapting to those changes, I might say that I am living authentically again, but I was temporarily living in bad faith.

This raises the concern: Is change an obstacle of authenticity?

While change may in fact temporarily dampen our authentic nature as humans, it is also a bridge to being authentic. Human’s have an innate sense of authenticity. I mainly feel an absence of authenticity when I am in situations that are unfamiliar or when I feel uncomfortable. That is the stage when we are inauthentic. But the practice of being uncomfortable, for example, eventually leads us to being comfortable in situations that previously we were not comfortable with. This is an example of how in-authenticity can become authentic.

By this definition of authenticity, no matter how reluctant an individual is to living in-authentically, they must for a period of time do so if they encounter change, which is inevitable in our existence due to death and the continuity of time as an hourglass that is constantly flipping (Lecture 6-2-2015).