something real

I grew up in a world where you have to learn that things you see in the magazines or on T.V. are spurious to the max or go crazy from the hammering understanding of your blatant inadequacy. Kate Moss is a god to some teenagers and twentysomethings attending NYU, but they probably throw up after three bites of keash and get nose bleeds in the middle of their political science classes. I don’t like tweaking, but I do like to digest my meals, thank you very much.

However, this means that I have to realize that what the media shouts at me a hundred times a day before lunch is bullshit. Coming of age with sanity after the turn of the millennium requires the ability to read vogue and know what parts to laugh at (the models that look like twelve year olds) and what parts to document in your moleskin (the way to revitalize your African frazzled hair and what collections to veneratably ogle online).

This crucial talent, however, has also made us a generation of skeptics. If it’s good, it’s too good to be true. If it’s bad, it’s either a lot worse, or the CNN is inflating the story just so the pundits have something to talk about when nothing else is going on.

A few years ago during Christmas, my classmate and neighbor went to Guatemala to work at an orphanage. She came back head-over-heels in love with the children. A string bracelet with the countries name was everlastingly affixed on her wrist; she had fundraisers selling homemade calendars and Guatemalan chocolate. She vowed to and eventually did go back for the summer.
She didn’t gush about the experience to strangers or anything, but in the days of MySpace, nothing was a secret. My group of school friends actually made fun of her behind her back, laughing at her MySpace photos and her new Latina-inspired style. The experience wasn’t authentic, just a show so that people would think she was “deep” or the new Mother Teresa or to help her get into a good college. “Great, go help street children in your seven jeans,” I remember one saying.

A solid education has taught us to think critically, but when do we stop criticizing? Can anything ever be good or authentic enough for us?

In a time when everything we do will become satire in someone else’s head (and in a time where everything we do is being published to the world via Facebook or… blogs), how do we live a life of authenticity without the fear of being categorized as trendy or phony by someone else, or even yourself?

I often battle with the authenticity of this year. How much of this is to really help the world and how much of it is for yourself to figure out some of your life before starting college? Do you really want to do these things you’re doing, or do they just sound cool?

I feel that for at least one month of this year, I’ve discovered something that I can believe in. Alaska was a bust, spending time with some of my extended family was occasionally excruciating, and Ghana sucked a whole lotta hope out of me. But, living at a Monastery in the middle of fucking nowhere has made me realize that not everything in life has to be looked at so critically. Authenticity of life is something you feel, not derive from playing to a certain set of standards. I guess that this is something you can learn only when you truly love something, like I love that place. When you know there is real love in your life, the clawing standards society sets for sincerity don’t matter. You can feel the truth of some things, and by golly, that’s good enough for me.