Keeping It Real

One of my favorite Chappelle's Show sketches is "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong." It is a hilarious exploration of how a trip up the ladder of inference can go spectacularly awry all under the auspices of a freedom to express exactly what the characters are feeling. Many people view being authentic as having no filter between emotions and actions. Finding that distasteful, they therefore skew to the other extreme of being agreeable or constructing a public facade that conforms to what they think others want. I certainly fell into that camp, and I was weighed down by imagined expectation.

I would get exhausted going to social gatherings. I thought I had to be someone others expected me to be. Which is an exercise of me assuming what others value and how I might reflect those imagined beliefs. The house of cards I built from these assumptions is plain in hindsight, but felt necessary at the time. It was destructive in manifold ways. It was especially foolish to be so concerned because no one cares anyway. I was trying to find external validation for myself and I therefore repressed many facets of what I assumed to be distasteful.

The comedian Bill Burr has pointed to the self-repressive nature of our culture. As he observes, men drop dead at 50 from heart attacks because for decades they repress the full range of human emotion, including the absurd denial that a puppy is cute. The psychic pain of self-judgment can be immense and, left unchecked, can inflict real physical damage. For me, it was exhaustion, irritability and impatience.

But I grew tired of being unpleasant. I gave up and quit the notion that a rat race was something that I could win. By doing so I have come to value myself more. And I have found being authentic has more to do with being consistent with a set of values and behaviors rather than the dissolution of any filters.

There is freedom when I wholly accept myself. Most immediately, it frees up mental and emotional capacity that would have been calculating (really guessing) how others might perceive me. With this freed up capacity, I can be more engaged, and therefore more empathetic. It has also reduced feelings of regret as I can focus on activities that matter to me. Ultimately being authentic means to be sustainably purposeful.

But I know that I'm lucky. My authentic self is easier as a straight, white male in a society where power structures have been constructed by people that look like me. I recognize it would be harder to be accepted if I looked different. But it is instructive that for someone whose demographics are favored , it was still hard. And that fact is interesting, but also concerning as that implies there are so many that feel they have to repress themselves regardless of circumstances.

I am testament that this can be changed. Humans are amazing story tellers, but many of those stories are self-destructive; turning pain into suffering. I was able to bring awareness to my pain and move away from the suffering. With the space created, I could be more clear on what was important to me. From there I could then move forward more purposefully in concert with my wants and values.

When we emerge from our isolation and socially gather again, I hope many will have taken the time to evaluate what is most important and discard what is not. For those choosing to cast off the shackles of external validation, they will move much more freely in a changed world. I am confident that the changes I have made will allow me to adapt nimbly in this new world.