I.

Lately I’ve been wondering if authenticity is overrated. We talk about it like it’s a good thing by default, but someone or something could be authentically terrible. Instead of trying to be authentic, shouldn’t we just try to be better?

Right now, the world seems very fake – FaceTune, AI, performing the self for social media, etc – so people are crying out for authenticity. But I think what most people mean by authentic is “authentic enough”. That’s why words like “cringe” and “trauma dumping” are in common parlance; both are consequences someone might face for being too authentic, in a way that makes others uncomfortable.

I guess it comes down to values. Do you think authenticity is a virtue in and of itself — the good, the bad, the ugly? Or does authenticity need to be tempered by its opposite, fakeness, in order to make sure nobody feels too uncomfortable? Do you value authenticity more than harmony?

II.

In The Weird Studies podcast on The Hanged Man, hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel say that The Hanged Man is the midpoint of The Fool’s journey in the Major Arcana. It is a sort of wake-up call for The Fool – whatever he’s done, he’s gone and gotten himself hung for it, shunned from the society he tried to integrate into. And yet he does not seem that displeased about it. Maybe he was sad and uncomfortable at first, but right now, he’s accepted his position. His body may be bound, but his mind is free. Maybe his body *had* to be bound in order for his mind to reach this state of nirvana, or acceptance (AKA discount nirvana).

I’m in New York right now, staying at an AirBnB in the neighbourhood I used to live in when I was in my mid-20s. It has barely changed, which I find comforting. What I loved most about it was all the warehouses and maximalist graffiti — quiet yet when you open a strange door (there are a lot of strange doors here), you might find a record shop thrumming with life, or an actual warehouse (not one re-purposed as expensive real estate). These few blocks smell like a giant simmering cauldron of chicken noodle soup, for some inexplicable reason. I peeked through one garage door and saw a couple of old men loading pallets full of all kinds of take-out containers. Square, cylindrical, the white foldable ones with the metal handles that you get from Chinese restaurants, clam shells, the foil ones with frilly edges and flat caps. Towers of boxes containing boxes.

I sat down at a bar I used to go to all the time, and a sudden wave of sadness hit me, based on this iceberg of regret for all the things I did not do. Opportunities I did not seize because I was too shy or anxious; little things I stressed out over, the details of which I can barely remember now. I wish I had noticed all the take-out box distribution centres before, written a film script about five different New Yorkers, interconnected by the fact they ate out of take-out containers that came from the same cardboard box. (My 34-year-old brain thinks that’s too precocious, but a decade ago, I would have written the shit out of that script.)

Vowing not to make mistakes like this again, I made a bold romantic gesture that, er, did not go well. Before I made it, I had come up with all sorts of reasons why it was a good idea. I asked the Universe for a sign and immediately after, I walked by a diner called ARIES. Be bold! I thought the Universe was saying. Be authentic! Honour your Venus in Aries! It’s better to regret the things you do than the things you don’t do, right? Right?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Well, that diner was not named Aries Diner – what I had seen was cursive signage on its window that said FRIES.

Anyway, I was a bit too myself, and felt like an idiot. Not The Fool, but a fool. I took back all the mean things I said about my younger self: She was right to be uptight and pessimistic. Authenticity, what a trap. Nobody actually wants authenticity, I thought bitterly. Authenticity is overrated.

Dramatic, yes, but in my defense, there was a full moon in Leo, square Uranus in Taurus; also square the Sun and Moon in Aquarius. This celestial formation (a T-Square) had a nice hearty laugh at the expense of my nervous system. But I believe — maybe I need to believe — that these dramatic flare-ups happen for a reason, so I deleted the newsletter I wrote about The Hanged Man on the airplane, and wrote this one instead.

The Hanged Man has a halo around his head, and I wonder if — by accepting the consequences of his foolish actions — that halo becomes a portal that takes him to the next step of his journey through the Major Arcana. (Death, lol, as well as other terrifying cards like The Devil and The Tower. But there is also The Star, The Sun, and The World, which you can’t have without the baddies.)

All of which is to say, maybe The Hanged Man feels like the end, but it’s actually just the end of Act One.

III.

If The Fool is the beginning and The Hanged Man is the midpoint, The World is the end of the Major Arcana story.

In The World, a naked woman is flanked on four corners by symbols representing the Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio) – three of the participants in this week’s T-Square. Fixed signs are all about values. Earth (or Pentacles) values, Fire (or Wands) values, Air (or Swords) values, and water (or Cups) values.

While lost in the weeds of this particular newsletter, I met up with my friend Angela Chen (all-around genius and author of Ace) and posed the question: ‘Do you think authenticity is overrated?’

She said that authenticity runs the risk of being narcissistic, and that authenticity is often misunderstood as boldness or passion, an assertion of ego. But somebody could be authentically shy and soft-spoken, which tends to be interpreted as somebody hiding their light under a bushel (my phrasing, not hers).

‘Is authenticity more valuable than harmony?’

She mentioned a word I had not considered yet: integrity. I was so busy swinging between the poles of authenticity and fakeness, I had not considered integrity yet.

Integrity is, I think, the where authenticity meets values. Values do not come to us naturally: We cultivate them based on our life experiences, and they are likely to change over time. Identifying values is something I don’t think many people actively identify and articulate, because it feels like the kind of activity kids have to do in a school project. But I think it’s a really useful thing to do, because we tend to conflate our personal values with universal ones – kindness, freedom, tolerance, etc – and assume we value those by default, because we would be assholes if we did not. But we lose something when we just assume our values are shared. Not only is this is the root cause of so many interpersonal skirmishes, but also, without identifying our values, integrity seems like some sort of vague, morally superior drivel. Authenticity feels more accessible than integrity, maybe – but authenticity without integrity is directionless. It cannot be channeled towards anything for the greater good.

I think that’s why ‘completion’ or ‘integration’ — which shares the same root word as integrity — is often used as a word to describe The World, as opposed to ‘ending’. Because the end of any journey, any story, is the summation of all its parts. That’s when you realise that every card, every scene, every foolish attempt, every regret – in a work of fiction or real life – meant something; it contributed some value. A thousand little containers of value, if organised and tended to, eventually make a fixed value system that, like coconut tree trunks, need to be a bit flexible in order to weather life’s many storms.