Script & sources at: www.thenandnow.co/2023/06/26/how-to-be-yourself/ ► Sign up for the newsletter to get concise digestible summaries: www.thenandnow.co/the-newsletter/ ► Why Support Then & Now? www.patreon.com/user/about?u=3517018

@JS-dt1tn

3 жыл бұрын

Check out Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity! Was hoping this video might cover some of that book. You would really enjoy it. For me, authenticity is historically produced and historically responsive. To speak of authenticity's function, it is the ultimate method of complexity reduction, ala Luhmann. Thanks for the video.

@AnaticulaeIratae14

3 жыл бұрын

Great video. I'm working through Being and Time at the moment, and this is encouraging as I sit with Heidegger's new concepts.

@sskpsp

3 жыл бұрын

Do you think you can foray into non-Western philosophy on this subject? The self is the central question in Indian philosophy especially Hinduism and Buddhism too touches on a lot of the concepts in this video. Also the same with Chinese philosophy (cf. especially Daoism) as well as indigenous American, Australian, and Africana philosophies I think. I suppose it would be less genealogical at this point and more comparative, but I find all the different takes on the self really interesting. I kept making connections while watching this video.

@brucetidwell7715

3 жыл бұрын

Essential! Without authenticity, or at least it's closest approximation, one's life and actions are simply a random existence without point or purpose..

@JS-dt1tn

3 жыл бұрын

@@brucetidwell7715 The self and an authentic self are two different things.

Brian: "Don't follow me, you are all individuals" Crowd of followers chanting: "We are all individuals" One person muttering: "I'm not" Other people in crowd: "Shh". --- Life of Brian, Monty Python.

@bepisthescienceman4202

2 жыл бұрын

Oddly enough the one who said they weren't a individual was the individual

@ferretappreciator

2 жыл бұрын

@@bepisthescienceman4202 that's the entire point of the comment. In fact, almost the only point made in the comment. You probably couldn't have even tried to get another point from this comment

@chrps0at0cops

2 жыл бұрын

Well said brother. I'm really enjoying the content and all the work you put into it. Keep vibing

@AlicedeTocqueville

2 жыл бұрын

@@ferretappreciator l was wondering how to 'splain that to 'bepis the science man'.

@johnnyoranges

Жыл бұрын

@@bepisthescienceman4202 You got it !

A great philosopher once said “Layers. Onions have layers. People have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.”

@standowner6979

3 жыл бұрын

You're quoting Shrek!😂

@QueryBuns

3 жыл бұрын

I pray to Shrek before every meal and before every sleep 🙏

@peterjanssen5901

3 жыл бұрын

They're also delicious when oven baked.

@TALKmd

2 жыл бұрын

We are Onions.

@cypressbartlett9083

2 жыл бұрын

I like parfaits

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." -- F.W. Neitzsche

At the heart of the onion is awareness. All sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, bodily sensations, tastes are objects in awareness. All such objects come and go but awareness is constant. Even when we sleep, awareness is still there, illuminating our dreams. Awareness is not an object, like the aforementioned perceptions are objects, it is the subject, the first person. Awareness is like an open empty space, the canvas for all experience. It doesn’t evolve, it doesn’t need anything, it doesn’t reject anything. It doesn’t have a size or shape. It is not scarred or embellished by the objects of experience. In the absence of sights, sounds, thoughts etc it persists, yet the objects of experience would disappear without it. This is your true self and seeing it clearly is liberation.

To be an individual is to recognize where my ideas come from and what or who influences me. To first question ideas and beliefs then integrate them as bricks to my house of self understanding. Repair and replace if ideas prove false and never stop building.

@Paranoia128

2 жыл бұрын

So true 🙏❤

@hinduismwithpremananddasbhagat

Жыл бұрын

At one point in my 30's I wasn't happy. I started deconstructing my ideas, my beliefs, etc. I found so much I believed I couldn't explain and it didn't feel local. I just knew mom told me to believe this or that, or society told me to believe this or that. I was shocked by how much I would spout, but couldn't explain, or even understand. Once I broke down my ideas, and started pulling back to me ideas I had swallowed into my own words, and could explain, wow, that was the first time I think I became "me".

This is absolutely beautiful. You are becoming one of the most talented, and fast improving, philosophy channels.

@ThenNow

3 жыл бұрын

Much appreciated :)

@Saber23

Жыл бұрын

Not really he’s contradicted himself multiple times

@CatrinaDaimonLee

Жыл бұрын

...meh

@Saber23

Жыл бұрын

@@CatrinaDaimonLee don’t say meh that’s my thing

@thexel133

Жыл бұрын

@@Saber23 Philosophy has contradictions as it is an aspect of life.

Thanks for this, it's really interesting to see a collection of thinkers and their ideas lined up, explained, and synthesized into a clearer point.

That was a great synthesis of a variety of takes on authenticity. It's such a nebulous term that gets thrown around a lot without ever being defined in a manner that doesn't involve 'you know what I'm talking about'. Great work man. Love your channel.

Your videos just keep getting better and better. I've been thinking a lot about identity and who we can be outside of the prescription of our ancestors, and this has given me more directions to look. Thank you!

21:46 I've been putting off my plans to read Being and Time for the past 15 years. Yet somehow I feel I've still managed to be an Authentic Dasein anyhow.

Excellent video. Authenticity seems to be a paradox in the same way free will is. On the one hand we seem to have free will, on the other is seems obvious that everything is caused. It seems like we have some control in creating who we are, but that is obviously not true. We are created to a large extent by emotions, hardwiring over which we have no control, and the social and natural environment. The whole thing seems like an intractable paradox.

I had a discussion about authenticity with my trans support group. Hope this video gives me some new perspectives!

Very cool. Feels (for me) very authentic! ;-) I love the way you are presenting these videos. I came to the first because of an interest in Spinoza. I was searching, I suppose for a way to understand, and even express in words to myself my own hazy beliefs. So I ordered from my beloved BWB (Better World Books) Nadler's biography of Spinoza, and the Ethics. So far, I've loved the biography on many levels, but hit a wall with the Ethics. I just couldn't grasp it, get ''into'' it. Searching online , after several disappointing videos, I luckily found yours. Kol HaKavod! (Hebrew for ''more power to you!"--but literally, all honor (to you). So I'm on my merry way, watching more and more of your videos. None disappoint, all push me to go on in this autumn of my life (I'm 76 soon), thinking, searching, finding, creating . As a visual artist (working in recent years in melding sculpture, painting and photography by digital means), I often see parallels with your insights in my experiences as an artist and art teacher. Thank you very much!

I love this channel. All these subjects are so cool, I want to watch them all at once. Thank you for doing what you're doing!

The conclusion is awesome! Create thy self.

Like I suppose any good exploration of philosophy should be, most especially and exploration of "authenticity," this was both a confirmation of my own reality and a challenge to it. Thank you!

Thanks to the Patreons for making this possible for us who are not - without AtlasVPN or some other sponsor interrruption. Excelent video.

I’m really looking forward to the next video on authenticity and politics. My mind has been in a tug of war between Nietzsche and Marx for years and I’m intrigued to hear your thoughts on authenticity as political praxis. When Sartre tried to do it, it didn’t quite work. Great job, my friend! Keep it up 👍

@GetUnlabeled

2 жыл бұрын

The ultimate goal is to hold both with total awareness and acceptance without attachment

@Saber23

Жыл бұрын

Lol so 2 opposites both with hardly anything practical to offer? No wonder you people constantly waste time

phenomenal work Lewis, needed this!

this appears to be a timely video for me, one that I would do well do watch and think over. Let's see! Thank you for making these

07:27 Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Mask 12:37 Søren Kierkegaard's Inner Truth 16:45 Friedrich Nietzsche's Will to Power 20:40 Martin Heidegger's Limited Life 27:56 Jean-Paul Sartre's Radical Freedom 35:06 The Inner Child or Multiple Selves 38:35 Being (you)

Everything dances and then it connects. Excellent and timeless🧭 💡👌. Thank you.

I've recently started watching your videos and I very much enjoy your relevant and historical deep dives into philosophical questions. Keep it up!

Loving your work. You have just changed my life for the better. Love you so much for all the effort, hard work, passion you have to improve our lives for the better and also for being so smart and communicative and kind enough to share your findings/conclusions with us here. Will definitely support you when I'm able... hopefully soon😂. You have become one of my favorites on the KZread.

My favourite channel uploaded yaaaay

Great overview of authenticity. I would love to see a video on the Eastern conception of authenticity. For example the Daoists focused on decultivation as a way to being closer to the Dao.

Commenting for the algorithm! So ummm yeah great work, Lewis!

Impressive synopsis of so many complex ideas. I do want to say that creating or shaping self can't happen in isolation, or it can but not very well. Cultivating a self happens best in community and through relationships with intimates, acquaintances, and even with ideas. But maybe these are coming in the next video on this subject?

@ThenNow

3 жыл бұрын

You must have a crystal ball :)

@raymondklassen7396

3 жыл бұрын

Yes... to authenticity developing in community. This breakdown o authenticity is first-rate.

Most people don't keep their word. The authentic Self keeps Its Word. Freed Will is greater than the Will to Power due to the fact that Power Seeking is the rooted in words & worlds of powerlessness.

What a great opening!

Although I realise this channel primarily focuses on continental philosophy...an examination of the self from the perspective of Buddhism would’ve been interesting

@ThenNow

3 жыл бұрын

Agree - will return to this topic soon

@spectralv709

3 жыл бұрын

@@ThenNow Can’t wait!

Love your work. This is a comment for your algorithm...

I am really thankful of your work, once again a lot of thanks, i really like the way you deliver philosophy. ❤️👍

Listening to this writing style scratches an itch I knew I had... Confronting issues so directly with simple words, but strewn with complexity.

Perfect timing again Lewis 👏👏

MAN! Youre videos are so brilliant! I loved the beginning!

Wonderful thank you so much!🦋🕊

I love that this felt like a journey through so many different philosophical thought.

This is a really great video. Well structured.

Being aware of something specific at a particular moment is only possible by repressing everything that could attract our attention at the same time and was forgotten or avoided by what we call "being focused on something". We are good at doing one thing at a time. When we try to do too many things at once we "lose focus" and make mistakes. To be or not to be is then a matter of keeping or losing focus, being focused on this or that. But we don't live alone, so what we are or cease to be depends on the relationships we build our common focus with someone (family, friends), with something (soccer team, political party, religion) for some emotional reason (love , greed, hatred). Can our ability to be and stay focused with a few or many people be manipulated? Yes. Those who know how to press the right buttons can manipulate one person, a few people, and depending on how the message is spread, tens or hundreds of millions of people. To be an individual in a mass society is paradoxically to be part of the mass in some way. We live together, so each of us has two personalities: one that is our own and unique; another that is the individual reflection of the groups in which we are focused on the same thing with other people. So the big question is not how can I be myself, but how can I not be the individual reflection of the groups in which I am focused on the same thing with other people? The conflict that exists within us comes to exist with other people at the very moment when we want to free ourselves from the socially shared part of our personality. Socrates said that it was better to be in conflict with society and in agreement with yourself than to be in agreement with society and in conflict with yourself. He knew things... but people just can't understand the human depth of what he said and all of that still deserves our focus.

My authentic self, full of possibility, is going to stay sat here doing nothing.

This guy is so good.

Thank you so much! Have you, or thought about, publishing this? I could certainly use it in my thesis. Cheers..

This is rich content thank you!

Excellent video 🙌 thank you!

I feel like from Jung's point of view authenticity is the expression of one's archaic archetypal patterns...thus,in some sense, manifestation of the true concept of self.The denial of this internal expression (its repression..or in other words:deep,internalized lie) is the cause of many (if not all) psychological issues,in humans and societies.It's must be the essence of all human beings. Denying the essence = denying truth=denying oneself=going towards the auto annihilation. I think that this leads directly to the concept of Logos and Nietzschean Superhuman,and there a re other examples too.. Authenticity could a concrete manifestation of the presence of that universal drive towards order and complexity...(at least in humans).That drive from which one can deviate but to which ,ultimately, in order to live one must return. In synthesis :authenticity=truth Greetings from Italy!

@alexanderleuchte5132

3 жыл бұрын

Plato says hi

Finally the Truth has come out again!

Really enjoying these videos, thanks!

Thanks for this video. I want to be authentic but have no idea what to do, besides following my gut instincts which made me more impulsive I still think I am not being 100% myself

Fantastic video!

Great video as always

Very interesting! Thank you!

Brilliant essay, thank you! My time to get into this topic has finally come

In Philosophy Journal (96) is good article about essentialist authenticity. It gives this video interesting twist - at the end you propose two outlines: exploration and action, as if you synthesize essentialism and existentialism in one coherent whole. But that leaves lot of questions and more problems: is there anything to explore? if there is no centre of oneself, isn't that a waste of time? So that article just focuses on that "exploration" part, on our essence a I think those two outlines are separated for a reason we can better understand what is identity. Synthesizing them makes more problems and lowers explication strenght.

This was awesome

I am bingewatching all of your videos!!! thanks a lot for you hard work! Until I can financially support you I try to share as many videos as possible :)

Very well done and very interesting.

Great video!

Throwing yourself at the ground and missing - Douglas Adams - was always a good recommended way of going about it. ; )

Thanks for this

Excellent video

In the Middle of the Onion is space no Center at all, no object 🎁 or subject🥇only🙏 Direct👣Transcendental☯️ 🧘Experience of Being🎺& non-being🧅, no-thing but only Space for de'Light✨

seeking authenticity within oneself is impossible. because the moment you start to investigate it, the investigation itself becomes a part of authenticity. we don't hate some music because our personality dictates us, we hate it because we simply were not prepared for that. i may be wrong though. or perhaps i have just wrote some easy obvious ideas, which i am not proud of.

How do you only have 150k subs? This content is so amazing!

Legend

When you said to say the first thing that came to mind a LJS fish taco appeared in my mind for no reason at all. I’m screaming lol

Great video.

As long as society has existed, the self has been a product of society. Social groups are, by definition, cooperative and interdependent. The idea of a purely self derived 'self' is a little old fashioned

This video is VERY IMPORTANT for me!

Great video

I do not think that it is our duty to make choices , some times , the failure of making a absolute choice can unleash a transformation the other situations. Thus, sometimes it is the situation rather than the absolute choice.

@TALKmd

2 жыл бұрын

Onion of onions.

good info thank you

You've gained a subscriber, thanks for the videos!

Thanks! - amazing video , I really appreciate it. It has helped me a lot in face things I've been avoiding lately

@ThenNow

Жыл бұрын

So glad, thank you!

You quoted Alice Miller!! Immediate plus 100 in my book

excelent

This comment has been approved by my authentic self😏

How to be yourself, at the end of the day be true to yourself, even if that truth hurts..

B O R I N G

This is one of your most amazing videos. Thank you very much for this amazing journey!

*Wisdom.*

Maybe an actual way - negative, by exclusion - to define and measure a possible version of a "true self" is how much of a coherent consciuosness you can be without too much distress caused by inherent cognitive dissonance

*¡pondering and wondering at 12:35 pm Pacific Standard Time on Friday, 4 March 2022 Common Era or CE formerly known as Ano Domini or AD! - 3 years ago Max Rafael Waller went from Granada Hills to Castaic for 2 years and 1 month and 8 days*

Commenting for the algorithm God, may it bless you with many views as it blesses us with a self now

✔️

yeah cool, love that longitudinal view.

Loved this! But work on your knife skills 🔪✨❤️

@Bojoschannel

3 жыл бұрын

He was trynna make a stew with big chunks obviously

@mrFredmaestro

3 жыл бұрын

@@Bojoschannel more likely that it was a metaphor for the onion not haveing a layer when it is cut up perhaps the knife is a metaphor for the chipy chopping up of our darting conciousness, lacking a centre. or maybe he was making a stew, i wonder what the tomatoes were for.

Then & Now, thank you for video. the ? what do you think of authenticity? Nothing really new so I think I could not be authentic even if I wanted to. I never heard of word (AMBIGUOUS) until I watch this video. Useful? I assume I have some use I probably be dead if I did not. Nonsense? I suppose many thing are not worth doing but get done any way. Central? I know I am central to my existences. We are the center of our lives each of us. Again, thanks for sharing this video. Much to think on.

Undoubtedly central I think. The mystery of what is the me that experiences qualia through the medium of consciousness is far more interesting than the intent, motivation and origin of what my body performs. What is the relationship berween the me that suffers consciousness and the emotions that seem to drive my actions. All fascinating stuff, especially when it is not clear what reliable tools and measures we have to investigate and explore such issues. and surely clarity on authenticity must precede a study of morality, Language appears to set us off, not from the beginning, but from an already subjective and diminished a priori stance, as well as it being the sole and alas untrustworthy vehicle provided for undertaking our journey of understanding.

@rudraksh5840

2 жыл бұрын

Interesting. Do you know about the Schopenhauerian stance about music being more primordial/authentic/potent medium of integration in-between consciousness and the Noetic reality as it is (He borrowed the Kantian distinction though not in its original scope)? Music, as per Schopenhauer, maps the fundamental movement of reality as something self annihilating and thus creating its new facet (Heraclitus). He called this primordial character as ''WILL'' which is commensurate with Spinoza's conatus in a way.

The final summary echoes some facets of Stoicism.

👍

Great overview of many different important ideas !

6:08 Ive seen this footage on the channel before I absolutely love it and have to know where it comes from

@ThenNow

3 жыл бұрын

It's a scene from The Astronomer's Dream by Georges Méliès

Alan Watts explains this very well

"‎Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against "society," that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship." ~ Emma Goldman

Do you have transcripts of your videos? This is a pretty content dense video, and it’d be nice to have something to read and study.

@ThenNow

3 жыл бұрын

I put them on Patreon :)

Yes! Heidegger always confused my badly wired little brain box using words that I thought I knew for his terms and somewhere in the middle I'd muddle what was what and be a sad little confused person with a badly wired little brain box.

I know I should really watch all the video before commenting. I'm still trying to think through as clearly as I can if authenticity is possible, meaningful or just another ill-defined concept that places another burden on ourselves. Ego, authenticity, freedom, all vague, related too and cumbersome ideas yet how important they seem. However, if say ego is nonsense then how can we talk about things like authenticity?

Looking at the cigar is NOT bad faith because you failed to see the good in it. If YOU believe it is bad, then TO YOU and FOR YOU it's bad. Otherwise, very good lecture. Thank you!!