You Can’t Buy an Authentic Self

I know a Holocaust Survivor. He is nearly 100 years old, I have known him for many years. He is only just beginning to understand ‘unhappiness’. He has never remembered being unhappy, not even during WW2. Angry, afraid, contrary, but never unhappy. He always said that he is too busy to feel unhappy. Even sadness at losing friends and family has been temporary.

Now, in extreme old age, as his ability to engage with the world is diminishing, now he begins to understand unhappiness. He has never sought happiness; he has simply engaged with his world. He has sought pleasure in achievement, in learning, in culture. But the sense of “I need X to be happy” has been totally alien to him - until he lost the ability to engage.

He is an extraordinary role model and exemplar of resilience.

Indeed - when Anne Boleyn chose ‘the most happy’ as her motto it was in the sense of blessed or fortunate, not describing how she felt.

I think 'living authentically' can be understood in the context of not having to comply with social expectations, but if you live in an OECD country it has never been easier to live a real life free from discrimination, while conversely it has never been more possible to present a heavily curated self image to others through social media.

Agree that the modern concept of- and relentless pursuit of- happiness is really unhelpful.

My kids are young adults and I have tried to instill in them the understanding that happiness is just an emotion like all the other emotions and no one should expect to be in that state permanently. Furthermore, there is certainly no right to it. We’re just animals after all, and our only purpose for being here is simply to survive as long as possible and reproduce. Everything else is a bonus. Hopefully we will be lucky enough to experience happiness and joy many times throughout our lives, but we can’t demand it and we certainly can’t buy it.

"The concept of happiness shifted from a matter of divine luck and external fortune in ancient times to a personal right and internal state of well-being in the modern era"

Yes, but never calling it 'happiness'. As you suggest when we break down what is meant by 'happiness' often the best description is a feeling of contentment ( or maybe satiation of desire). But even then, this is not a permanent state for most people. Life is full of ups and downs and roundabouts.

Yes, i was speaking about this with my american friend just yesterday.

The whole Disney thing is total americana too - and I hold it responsible for so many of the retrograde gender stereotypes that now abound ( princesses and fairy tale weddings etc). It is so fake and so plastic.

Maybe it comes from the founding fathers?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Happiness is not just a right but a duty to God, and it isn't just something you feel because you are alive and the sun is shining, but something that must be actively pursued.

" Happiness" is simply a marketing tool. What does it even mean, anyway? A life free from any struggle, worry or anxiety?

In Shakesperean times the concept of happiness ( as we now understand it) didn't even exist. My daughter ( a Shakespeare afficionado) tells me that happiness, in tudor times, meant being the recipient of a stroke of fortune or good luck.

And you would still be yourself if you had no money. You might be less happy, but you wouldn't be less 'authentic'.

The U.S instinct is to monetise absolutely everything.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The honourable and dignified aims of the American Constitution have been taken to such extremes that they are distorted beyond recognition.

1 Anything taken to extreme becomes so distorted that it harms the very people it is supposed to serve.

2 Just because you can, just because you have the right to, doesn’t mean you should.

Totally agree with all of that @RapidOnsetGenderCritic. There is a general feeling in modern times that everyone needs and deserves happiness. ‘Treat yourself’ etc. None of us are owed happiness or joy- they’re just emotions that hopefully most of us will be lucky enough to experience from time to time. I guess it just goes to show how easy our lives are now compared to many around the world and throughout history who are/were just trying to survive.

I'm not convinced that my authentic self has to be happy – at least, not all the time, and not necessarily even most of the time. Indeed, I'm not sure it's healthy to have very high expectations of happiness. Life includes grief, loss, loneliness, pain, as well as joy, gain, companionship, health. I don't think a life without the hard stuff is necessarily a better life. "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." That resonates with my experience, even though I will almost certainly experience the grief of loss again and again. It sometimes seems that being emotionless is the worst fate of all.

Today's society sometimes looks to me like one in which people think something is wrong with them if they are unhappy, whereas to me it is part of life to be accepted, but with the hope of better things to come. Following a sports team can teach this life lesson, and yet there are fans who have an extraordinarily entitled outlook in which they seem to think that their team's continual success is owed to them.

Agree.

Advertising campaigns of the past created insecurities in women such as telling them they needed to douche with Lysol to be 'fresh', telling them they needed to shave their body hair to be feminine, telling them to use radium-containing products on their skin or in their eyes to look 'glowing'.

And, today, advertising tells women to use fillers, botox, have BBL surgery, have eye and brow lifts, contour their faces with makeup, remove buccal fat in their cheeks, create 12 step skincare routines, encourages them to have 'everything' showers. A lot of these new 'elements of being a woman' didn't exist even 20 years ago, they were created and marketed to young women by businesses that wanted to make money.

Capitalism creates categories of product and then undermines the confidence of a group of people it wants to develop as a market. It has nothing to do with meeting unmet needs or personality types.

Thanks, OP, I enjoyed reading this and whilst her observations may not be ground-breaking, it is good to see them from, and shared with, the younger generation. It makes me so angry when I see young mums at the school gates with lip filler and all the rest in an area where many people don't really have money. These companies preying on insecurities and society goes along with it. One of the most feminist acts a woman can do in this day and age is to love herself as she is. And it is ridiculous that that should be so hard now.

I think it was Gandhi who said, 'The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others' and I do believe he was right on that.

Bloody capitalist patriarcy.

Perhaps you lack basic marketing 101 which requires a consumer connection.

Marketing to personality traits means shaping brand message to match how different people think, feel, and act. By using psychology models like the Big Five or classic personality types, brands can build make their ads feel personal.

So its not as if consumers purchase because they have been 'conned' but rather because they personally connect with the message.

It's interesting how many anti trans activist infantilise people because they don't agree with their choices.

A woman wanting a mastectomy for aesthetic reasons may be no different to other women having breast implants for aesthetic reasons. Its the opposite side of the same coin.

Its extreme, dangerous consumerism.

If a woman is sold the idea that a mastectomy makes her less of a woman or more of a man is being sold a lie. I dont think women see having breast implants as making themselves more 'woman' than the already are.

When mastectomies for trans surgeries are sold as 'healthcare', similar to a women with breast cancer having mastectomies. Its another lie. One saves lives, the other is cosmetic.

How different is this to women with labia plasty, breast implants, multiple surgeries? The Kardashians, Joan Rivers, Lil' Kim.