Radical Authenticity
Yesterday, I reconnected with one of my favorite people. I'd honestly assumed that I'd lost him forever, no differently than if he'd died. The fact that we reconnected now, I feel, is no coincidence. When we first met, on Tumblr, I was very active within the "Tumblr Writing Community" (TWC), as was he. What I wouldn't know at the time was that I would develop some of the strongest and most long-lasting relationships of my life through the TWC. It took an extended period away from Tumblr to realize what Tumblr had given to me, and what I needed, now, to create for myself in my life. During a transitional period of my life, as I was looking back, turning things inside out, trying to figure out where I went wrong because I just didn't believe that existence was meant to be such a existential struggle, I realized that over the 17 years I'd lived in Nashville, Tennessee, the closest relationships I'd had were with people I'd met on Tumblr. Many of them became friends (or even lovers) of mine IRL, but most of them remained virtual—although their virtuality makes them no less real. What Tumblr gave me was a safe space where I could be not just my authentic self, but my ideal authentic self—the person I really wanted to be. It gave me space to experiment and play around in the margins of that self, keeping the things that I loved and tossing what didn't work for me. I made such powerful connections on Tumblr because I was committed to a sort of radical authenticity that I did not yet have the courage to embody in real life. The difference, I realized looking back, was a matter of tense. I didn't have the courage then—but maybe I do now. Courage is a funny thing because you never think about it beforehand. You're not, like, faced with a decision and go "I'm gonna do the courageous thing!" No, you do what you think is right, you do what you feel you need to do. Courage isn't something you have—it's a judgement placed on your actions by other people. Why did I say judgement? Because people only talk about courage when they talk about somebody doing something that they either know they wouldn't do or doubt very seriously they would do if they were in the same situation. So they assign the mythical to give themselves an out. Such courage, they'll say. I'm afraid I'm not nearly as brave as that. So humble. Saying something requires courage, or bravery, means that you don't have to dig into your core values to figure out why you wouldn't have the same instincts, why you wouldn't follow the same path, why you wouldn't put your ass on the line for something you believe in. Like I said, they give themselves an out. The thing is, when you recognize that, something happens that stops holding you back from doing the thing you needed to be doing all along. And what I needed to be doing was being radically authentic, to myself and others, and let all of me shine out into the world instead of holding myself back and making myself small so other people would feel more comfortable. Do what you love and the rest will follow. And if someone's meant to be in your life, they're never truly gone. ©2024 by Jennifer R.R. Mueller
