Yes! Trilling saw it coming, didn't he? Though I wonder if he'd be horrified or fascinated by how we've turned his diagnostic into our daily practice. His "sincerity" was at least honest about being performed - we've somehow convinced ourselves our performances are spontaneous. Thank you for making that connection
He detailed it in literature. Stendahl, among others, as I recall. We get to watch it every day on TV, unfortunately in a particularly virulent presentation.
I guess you could argue novels were once culturally what insta and TikTok are today. But it is so compressed now. The line between sincere and authentic is wafer thin, with the sincere performance taking up all the space, effectively constituting the whole thing.
Your observation about novels as the Instagram of their day is brilliant. The 19th century reader consuming performed authenticity through Emma Bovary, the 21st century viewer consuming it through influencer breakdowns. Same hunger, different feed
Your diary developing stage fright is perhaps the most perfect metaphor anyone's offered. Even our most private spaces have become rehearsal rooms. I'm imagining your diary taking acting classes now, working on its "authentic voice"
Your "deliberate incoherence" experiment recalls medieval mystics who spoke in paradoxes to break through conventional understanding. But you're doing something more radical, you're suggesting incoherence AS coherence, performance AS authenticity.
This isn't just philosophy; it's a new form of being
That sentence was designed to be a kind of textual Möbius strip, I'm delighted it worked. Sometimes we need to be shattered and reassembled in the same breath to understand we were never truly solid to begin with. Your username suggests you already know this
Your uncertainty about thanking me is the most honest response here. That loud silence you're experiencing? That's the sound of all your unperformed thoughts suddenly becoming visible. It's uncomfortable. It should be. Welcome to the noise
This is fantastic. Buddhism reveals the “self” is an illusion, a mutable construct, anyway. A character in a fictional story we’re constantly revising. We might as well play with it!
Yes! The Buddhist understanding strips away the anxiety entirely
And your barnacle metaphor is perfect, each comment does attach and grow, creating new surfaces, new complexities. The piece is no longer mine but ours, growing in directions I couldn't have imagined. This conversation IS the performance of authenticity I was writing about, fractaling outward, proving the point by being the point.
The irony is delicious: in discussing the paradox of performative authenticity, we're all performing authentically, creating a living demonstration of the very thing we're examining. The barnacles are the essay now.
Fun essay. You’re talking about the difference between sincerity and authenticity. Lionel Trilling wrote a book about it.
Yes! Trilling saw it coming, didn't he? Though I wonder if he'd be horrified or fascinated by how we've turned his diagnostic into our daily practice. His "sincerity" was at least honest about being performed - we've somehow convinced ourselves our performances are spontaneous. Thank you for making that connection
Some get stoned / some get strange / but sooner or later / it all gets real
- NYoung
He detailed it in literature. Stendahl, among others, as I recall. We get to watch it every day on TV, unfortunately in a particularly virulent presentation.
I guess you could argue novels were once culturally what insta and TikTok are today. But it is so compressed now. The line between sincere and authentic is wafer thin, with the sincere performance taking up all the space, effectively constituting the whole thing.
And don’t get me going on the authentic…
Your observation about novels as the Instagram of their day is brilliant. The 19th century reader consuming performed authenticity through Emma Bovary, the 21st century viewer consuming it through influencer breakdowns. Same hunger, different feed
Your piece arrived at the exact moment I realized my diary has developed stage fright
Your diary developing stage fright is perhaps the most perfect metaphor anyone's offered. Even our most private spaces have become rehearsal rooms. I'm imagining your diary taking acting classes now, working on its "authentic voice"
The absurdity is exquisite
😂
Your "deliberate incoherence" experiment recalls medieval mystics who spoke in paradoxes to break through conventional understanding. But you're doing something more radical, you're suggesting incoherence AS coherence, performance AS authenticity.
This isn't just philosophy; it's a new form of being
Your reading gives me vertigo in the best way
Schrödinger's authenticity broke me and rebuilt me in the same sentence
That sentence was designed to be a kind of textual Möbius strip, I'm delighted it worked. Sometimes we need to be shattered and reassembled in the same breath to understand we were never truly solid to begin with. Your username suggests you already know this
Even my silence feels loud now. Thank you, I think?
Your uncertainty about thanking me is the most honest response here. That loud silence you're experiencing? That's the sound of all your unperformed thoughts suddenly becoming visible. It's uncomfortable. It should be. Welcome to the noise
"The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made" George Burns
Mike, George Burns understood the game perfectly, he just had the courage to wink while playing it.
Maybe the real achievement isn't faking honesty, but admitting the fake with such genuine charm that it becomes its own form of truh
This is fantastic. Buddhism reveals the “self” is an illusion, a mutable construct, anyway. A character in a fictional story we’re constantly revising. We might as well play with it!
Yes! The Buddhist understanding strips away the anxiety entirely
And your barnacle metaphor is perfect, each comment does attach and grow, creating new surfaces, new complexities. The piece is no longer mine but ours, growing in directions I couldn't have imagined. This conversation IS the performance of authenticity I was writing about, fractaling outward, proving the point by being the point.
The irony is delicious: in discussing the paradox of performative authenticity, we're all performing authentically, creating a living demonstration of the very thing we're examining. The barnacles are the essay now.
And this conversation below makes the most wonderful barnacles on the piece, fractalizing its form.
You’re talking about