What’s the point of authenticity?
In late October my husband and I were walking around Westonbirt Artobetorum to view the Autumn colours, and I was stopping every few feet to take photos.
My husband is used to my behaviour because I love nature and I love to take photographs of nature – 2 characteristics of my authentic self and my authentic joy – and I rarely walk anywhere without stopping to take photos of the things I experience.
We had stopped to sit on a bench underneath a glorious yellow Ginko and families were noisily taking photos nearby, when he suddenly asked,
“What do you think will happen to the photos you take when you’re dead? They’re just going to be up in the cloud. What’s the point?”
I started to get annoyed as it sounded like he was passively aggressively complaining about my constant stopping to take photos and I told him so. If he had a problem with me, I told him he should just voice it.
“No, it’s not that, I think I’m having an existential crisis.”
If you knew my husband and my relationship you would know that this is my line, not his. My husband doesn’t have existential crises. So, my agitation ceased, and I answered him honestly to help,
“I don’t care what happens to them once I’m gone. I have no expectations about their future use. I love nature that’s my authentic passion, and I experience great joy in it, I love the experience of trying to “capture” beauty in the moment I experience it. I like to look back and remember the beauty I experienced. So, whenever the world seems too cruel, messed up and beyond hope, I come back to the beauty of nature and it soothes me, it restores me and I feel that life is good despite the actions of humans…
I don’t take photos for anyone else. Sure, I might share some from time to time on my FB page, but I share only a tiny fraction of the millions of photos of trees, leaves, sunlight, animals, plants, water, clouds, puddles etc that I take. I don’t take the photos for anyone but me. It is purely for my own enjoyment in the moment. So, it doesn’t matter to me what happens to them, I take them for my own authentic joy. “
Tom thinks about this, and says, “Ah ok. I’m good, thanks.” And we continue our walk.
With every Invincibility Principle that I share in the membership, I go deep with it myself. So, the subject of authenticity gets mentioned a lot at home at the moment! So, Tom understood what I was saying.
Taking photos of my experience feeds my soul. I don’t take them for anyone else but me and the joy in the moment.
When I was younger and FB was still new, I took photos to “post” them so others could enjoy them. For me it was always about wanting to share my joy. But as I’ve gotten older and gotten to know myself more, although I sometimes feel sad that the beauty in the photos aren’t shared, I have come to recognise that the photos are just for me to enjoy (and nobody as is interested in them than myself). Earlier this year, we visited Japan for the first time – this was my number one dream in life fulfilled. I took 6000 photos over 3 weeks. It seemed like everything we saw, did and encountered was beautiful, unusual and inspiring!
But no matter how many photos I took, they were still for me, so I could remember. I took them to remember how I felt. And interestingly enough, some of the most memorable places we visited didn’t allow photos, so I had to take internal photos of those!
When we do internal work, sometimes a natural question arises, “but what’s the point of this?” – especially if it seems like hard work!
But with all invincibility principles the results of the inner work become obvious quickly if you practice them! They free you of limitation, you generate more joy, you expand your capacity for love and you have access to a more profound peace.
Remembering your authentic self and then filling your life with the things that you authentically enjoy – well that’s a life enjoyed! Enjoyed for yourself, for your self’s sake. Not out of selfishness but quite the opposite out of self-love and when an authentic soul meets another authentic soul, the passions they have well they’re contagious!
In my next blog, I’ll share some intimate stories from my trip to Japan of how my heart knew what my mind couldn’t have known.
Invincible, Eternal Love, Gratitude & Hugs,
Sharon x