Short answer: Narrative. But here’s the thing, my short answers don’t fit into one paragraph let alone one word lol. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I don’t think that I’m the most conventional comparatist out there (my doctorate is in comparative literature, I’m not making up terms to call myself lol), but the big thing that I am pretty orthodox about, the core to the discipline one might say, is the absolute centrality of narrative for…well, literally everything. What about…*insert example here*? Literally everything. No exceptions. It is how our brains slash minds work, and how they relate to the world in which we find ourselves inextricably tied.

Maybe for non-humans narrative might not be so important, but for humans, which full disclosure I am myself, and I am assuming most of my readers fall into this category as well…for humans narrative is central to literally everything. We cannot talk about anything without be wrapped up in multiple narratives depending on the perspective chosen – because that is simply how meaning works for human beings. This isn’t open for debate, it’s just how it works.

Seriously, it’s just the ground beneath our feet as we humans try to move through an indifferent and unforgiving world – and thank your crushed little stars that we have a ground beneath our feet, it took our progenitors countless generations to get this much ground for us to walk on in the first place – and then once you can recognize the ground as ground you can start getting a closer look at what the ground is and how different terrains affect how people traverse them. Seriously part two – it’s a very worthwhile way of looking at the world overall. Certainly for the added accuracy and coherence (there it is) that it brings, but it also opens up so many avenues of beauty and adventure in the ways that people interact with each other and the world, but for that you can only see for yourselves [shrug emoji].

So, the actual start to my short answer: we (humans, the big We) are the stories we tell about ourselves and each other. Not metaphorically and not “in a way”. Fundamentally and with no exceptions: we are the stories we tell about ourselves and each other. Don’t believe me? Try to talk about yourself (or anyone else you can think of for that matter), but only sticking to the parts of you that haven’t changed since birth. Since toddlerhood. Since adolescence. Etc, etc. Btw, there’s none of those that you could choose that you could justify as a starting point without placing it in a narrative about your life in the first place. It’s not a trick, it’s just the way meaning works for humans – and if you or any other human wants to have meaning, or significance which amounts to the same thing in this context, then you or they have to do this way, via narratives. Simple as.

Settle down, we’re just gettin started. But seriously, it can be a real bummer – some stories just kinda suck and it would be a major bummer if your story was one of the shitty ones. But here’s the thing about that: Life can be a bummer sometimes, it doesn’t matter how you define it some shit just suuuuuucks.

Okay, let’s assume that you accept that your very self is a story that you (and others, for good or ill, and there is generally quite a bit of both in this regard) tell about yourself – so what then? Where does authenticity fit in?

Well, I’m glad you asked. Since there’s no inner core or whatever else you want to call it for authenticity to sink its teeth into, it must have something to do with the narrative itself. And it really does have to do with your side of it – the story you tell about yourself. Now, the stories that others tell about you can be lots of things (good, bad, neutral, etc) but they can’t be authentic. It’s a directional thing. But also an access thing. There might not be an inner core but there sure as shit a lot of *inner* happening – and one of the things that makes it inner is that it is not outer. No shit, right? Well, authenticity has to do with how those different inners get along with each other, so to speak.

You like that? I just made it up, pretty sweet, eh?

Anyway, I think it’s safe to assume that most people got all types of thoughts happening in a fairly chaotic (in the sense of unpredictable) yet generally patterned trip down the streams of consciousness. But not all thoughts are equal. Some ideas, some desires, some urges, some responses, etc etc occur far more often than others and with varying degrees of intensity. There are other important aspects, too, but you should hopefully get my point – and the point is that there are some types of thoughts, desires, etc that are gonna be more important for your own personal narrative than others – and those better be accounted for within the narrative in a way that you can accept with a straight face.

That’s it. That’s the short answer to what authenticity is. Easy enough. But like so much in Life, easier said than done. There are so, so, so, so many ways – and an equal or greater number of so’s for the number of reasons why – we do not in fact account for a great many of these significant pieces of us, or when we do we they end up distorted beyond recognition way more often than seems healthy.

Authenticity is simply doing the best you can at this process, to tell your narrative with as much accuracy and acceptance as possible. But just like there are “inner” things that outsiders aren’t privy to, there are also many things about ourselves that are very difficult to see about ourselves. We all have blindspots – all of us. The trick is is to try to account for those, too. And alas! there are ways that social animals can use to find out all sorts of things that they could never find out on their own. Kind of a sweet deal, actually.

The big take away here is that *authenticity* is a process that requires time and effort, but one that I personally think is worthwhile. I mean, there’s a reason why journeys of self-discovery make good stories – we all go through it so they’re always relatable, some just more so than others.

Wow, what an interesting way of framing that question – good job. As it so happens, integrity has everything to do with how certain things fit together. Namely, those parts of yourself that you consider to be the most important – emphasis on you. No one can tell anyone else what the most important aspects of their personality are – in fact, internalizing all types of version of this is one of the major obstacles to telling an authentic personal narrative. Well, those parts and your general pattern of behavior: that’s what should be fitting together. If you want to have integrity, anyway.

That’s a real healing process. No new age trying-to-sell-you-something crap or sarcasm or irony involved. Just straight up living in a way where the two most important sides of what makes you You (ie who you want to be slash see yourself as and who you are based solely on words and deeds) form a coherent story about a single person who is hopefully not at war with themselves. Health, simple as. 

Here, I’ll give you an easier way to see it than my usual gibberish: ask yourself if the person you see yourself as, your idealized self, the person you want yourself to be, would say and do the types of things that you in fact regularly do and say? If yes, then congratulations: you have integrity! If no, then I think we just made a breakthrough for diagnosing at least some of your emotional problems and the next step is to work on integrating those aspects of who you are (ie who you want to be and what you actually do and say).

Alright, these brownies are baked. Now let’s check on whether they’re gooey and delicious.

Now if you take that *authentic self* (coherent story about yourself that doesn’t flagrantly distort or exclude any of the most important ingredients of yourself) and put it in a world (conveniently Life went ahead and did that for us, so let us proceed accordingly), there are countless ways that your authentic self can and does interact with the world around you – but what interests us here is the stuff that would fall under the categories of *says and does*, namely that if the actual real stuff that regularly shows up in the *says and does* categories fits (or coheres if you want to nerd it up real nice) more or less seamlessly into that personal narrative that is the form and substance of your authentic self then you have integrity.

Two quick notes – first and most importantly, we are talking about patterns of behavior here. Everyone has off days or moments where they do something completely out of the ordinary for themselves. In fact if you had none of those, then your personal narrative is probably lacking at least some accuracy. Idk though, I guess there are some people who never surprise themselves or let themselves down or other such things, but I can’t imagine that they are the norm. Either way, it’s patterns that give a personal narrative coherence – the threads have to be thick enough to weave together into something that can stand on its own (hopefully), and that just can’t happen if all the threads are made out of isolated incidents that don’t have any principles underlying them at all which can give them some sort of thematic unity with other things that you do or say. That’s the bad chaos, the having-no-coherent-self-at-all kind of chaos. No one wants that (except for rather demented villains in stories who want to destroy the entire universe, you can find examples of this without much of a search I think, but either way, not good company for a world view imho).

The second note is just my personal thoughts on how the words *authenticity* and *integrity* are generally used in my experience. “Authenticity” is usually just used for gatekeeping different fandoms and subcultures and is honestly embarrassing as hell (approaching *sheeple* level of cringe – I mean, obviously nothing will ever come close to the cringe value of the word *sheeple* but the concept of authenticity being used to gatekeep subcultures is definitely in the same family and should evoke similar feelings of shame. It’s ok if you’ve been guilty of this before though, just don’t do it anymore). And almost all uses of a person having *integrity* in popular culture refer to how strictly a person toes the company line. Are they an inhuman monster? Yes, but they did it all in the service of increasing shareholder value. Well then fuck me sideways that mf is just oozing integrity! (I honestly hope I don’t need to tell you what I find less than ideal in this concept of integrity, but alas! The street lights are on and I must call it a day.)

So here’s my one last final super short answer:

Having integrity is when the story a person tells about themself matches up with how they usually interact with the world (ie the stuff they do and say on a regular basis).

And having authenticity is when the story a person tells about themself doesn’t leave out or distort beyond recognition any of the important internal things about that person.

And both of these are judged slash determined by how coherent they are as narratives that exist in contact with a crapload of other narratives (for those who just can’t help but try to fudge it with themselves: keep in mind that cross-referencing is a very real thing lol).

That’s it, and if any of your take-aways is that I personally am lacking in authenticity, integrity, and/or coherence: (a) I never said that I was good at any of the things I talk about and (b) ouch, that was unnecessary.