• To answer this question, start by questioning it

• Why inauthentic doesn’t survive?

  1. Two important truths to establish:

     1. We must acknowledge that it is only through acknowledging the presence of another that we, as a species, have survived. We survived because we could communicate and have a conversation. We had the ability to create a connection between two bodies of masses. Two identities. Two personalities. Everything else has been an outcome of this conversation.

     2. A “real” personality of a person is the union of their desire and discipline.

        1. When we are confident in ourselves to act in a way that is rationally correct, and we do it without the load of it being rationally correct, that is our true expression, that is our personality.

  2. Personalities are the missing pieces of the conversational puzzle. We attach our identities to every piece of information we input and output. When this attached identity is inauthentic, i.e., manufactured to fit in a conversation, it falls ill to two evils:

     1. Inconsistencies of identity:

        1. Identities are nothing but people and their countless patterns. Even if you manage to capture the majority of your visible patterns (visible patterns are most obvious because they are most likely pointed out by others for you), you’ll fail in manufacturing identical personalities across conversations because you’ll miss most of your invisible patterns.

     2. Similarly, manufacturing and indexing identities takes an enormous amount of energy. So in the long run, either you’d run out of energy to manufacture, or you’ll make degraded versions of those personalities you’ve held on for so long.

  3. These evils introduce an idea of inconsistency in the idea of “you” in the minds of others. Humans are naturally averse to inconsistencies. Then you lose the reverence, then consideration and eventually awareness.

  4. But,

     1. You’d say that personalities change. They will appear inconsistent across contexts anyway.

        1. Yes, they do change naturally too, but there’s a subtle but significant difference between natural change and manufactured change: manufactured change appears like binary, it’s a flip of the switch, but the natural personality changes like dripping water, leaving its trace everywhere.

Some notes: A lot of the words you see here are used for their heuristics, not for their academic, theoretical, and precise usage.

I initially wanted to write a conclusion to avoid making the reader feel incomplete, but

• I hate writing prescriptions

• I feel this is more poetically beautiful to keep it this way

• and I feel there’s a lot more counterpoints to explore and cover

This is a running essay where counter-arguments are continuously added.

Feel free to send your counter-argument to me on X (@tanishqxyz) or Warpcast (@tanishq), and I am happy to explore that direction with you.