Authenticity

“Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”
~Oscar Wilde

Authenticity /ˌôTHenˈtisədē/ Noun
~the quality of being genuine or real
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Authentic /ə-ˈthen-tik/ Adjective
1. true to one's own personality, spirit, or character
2. not false or imitation
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They say imitation is flattery but I don’t know about that. To be inspired by others is a given. Anyone, anything can be inspiring! And in a way nothing really is original. Most of everything has been done but what makes something authentic is integrating your own spirit into what you create. It comes from a deep place of knowing yourself and feeling worthy of who you are as a unique individual. It doesn’t become some reproduction of someone else’s life, persona, values. It’s your very special way of seeing and feeling, your special way of remixing it all to materialize it into the world. But when you try to be emulate, be like someone else you can just feel it lacks any real weight of authenticity. You just blatantly take someone else’s form of expression and try to pass it as your own then that is not inspiration that is imitation. And that doesn’t serve anyone really. And I see that happening within social media immensely to the point that people are creating fake accounts pretending to be someone else. On the other end, people stealing others ideas and passing them as their own. At least give credit where it is due. Give a fucking shout out, you know what I’m saying? People work hard to create beautiful valuable, real experiences, then someone just comes along and says I’m going to skip all that, the real engagement, exploration, the hands-on personal “living it” that is involved in creating authentic work. That is the beauty of diversity that everyone sees the world and experiences it in such a intimate personal way and if you have a bunch of people just pretending to be someone else or something their not then you have a huge homogenized world lacking aliveness, innovation and real integrated growth. Reminds me of Pink Floyds “Another Brick in the Wall” video. Anyways, that was my PSA/rant! Good night!
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(Street photography remix: Bronx, NY 2013)