Quotes About Authenticity

Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too much, just right.

When Thoreau considered "where I live and what I live for," he tied together location and values. Where we live doesn't just change how we live; it informs who we become. Most recently, technology promises us lives on the screen. What values, Thoreau would ask, follow from this new location? Immersed in simulation, where do we live, and what do we live for?

Real people, with their unpredictable ways, can seem difficult to contend with after one has spent a stretch in simulation.

What do we forget when we talk to machines? We forget what is special about being human. We forget what it means to have authentic conversation. Machines are programmed to have conversations "as if" they understood what the conversation is about. So when we talk to them, we, too, are reduced and confined to the "as if.

Does virtual intimacy degrade our experience of the other kind and, indeed, of all encounters, of any kind?

We have to love technology enough to describe it accurately. And we have to love ourselves enough to confront technology's true effect on us.

He makes an effort to be more spontaneous on Facebook.

The desire for the edited life crosses generations, but the young consider it their birthright.

I am troubled by the idea of seeking intimacy with a machine that has no feelings, can have no feelings, and is really just a clever collection of "as if " performances, behaving as if it cared, as if it understood us. Authenticity, for me, follows from the ability to put oneself in the place of another, to relate to the other because of a shared store of human experiences: we are born, have families, and know loss and the reality of death.

In solitude we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours. When we are secure in ourselves we are able to listen to other people and really hear what they have to say. And then in conversation with other people we become better at inner dialogue.

I saw the authentic rather than the rebuilt or enhanced.

You pass your photo through Photoshop and then others go photo shopping.

He prefers a deliberate performance that can be made to seem spontaneous.

We have the greatest chance of success if we recognize our vulnerability.

But, of course, what is up on Facebook is her edited life.

Solitude does not necessarily mean being alone. It is a state of conscious retreat, a gathering of the self. The capacity for solitude makes relationships with others more authentic. Because you know who you are, you can see others for who they are, not for who you need them to be. So solitude enables richer conversation.

The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.

If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it's time to be living. I don't want to frighten you, but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say.

Because you showed one face to all the rest of the world, and another to me.

Being honest about your feelings always works.

I want my audience to know me for my work, not because of who I'm dating or what drugs I'm on or what club I went to.

My dad is a motorcycle guy, not some Hollywood dude.

To deceive oneself is worse than to deceive others." These harsh words pierced me to the core.

You became an adult when you stopped caring what other people thought about you and started to care what you thought about them.