Authentic Orange

Submitted by: Brooke Jordan

Authenticity as defined by Vocabulary.com is, “a word that means something is genuine or real”. For a person to be authentic means they are true to oneself when making decisions and taking certain actions in everyday life. Staying true to oneself can be particularly hard when one is unsure of who they even are. The Oregon State Community thrives off of diversity and uniqueness. For a student to successfully,”be orange”, they must be authentic. One can achieve authenticity within the realm of the OSU community with just three helpful steps. The first includes using one’s freedom to submerge one’s self into the community by joining clubs, playing intramural sports, meeting new people, going to different events, etc. This allows a person to discover where their interests, likes, and dislikes lie. This allows for the diversity and uniqueness within the OSU community and to become “orange”.You begin to find yourself when you use the freedom, granted to every human, to expose yourself to new things and people. These decisions are much more important because a you are making them on your own, without higher authorities making them for you, that is not freedom (Lecture 5/26). Beauvoir stated, “he must assume his freedom and not flee it by a constructive movement: one does not exist without doing something; and also by a negative movement which rejects oppression for oneself and others” (Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, the conclusion second paragraph). Beauvoir means that without the use of freedom, one is wasting their life. After all, the only thing you aren’t free to do is make the decision to not be free (Lecture, 5/21). The second step of becoming “orange”, is not relying on forms of bad faith, this includes not denying transcendence. An example of denying transcendence would be, a student who spends their time on social media when they should be studying for an important exam that is coming up. Instead, they wait until the very last minute to start studying, when most would think this moment is too late. The student then tells their friend,”It’s okay, I always work better under pressure anyways”. This would be a form of denying transcendence because the student is denying their ability to change the habit of procrastination, they are not taking responsibility when able to start their studying (Lecture 6/2). Denying transcendence is very easy to do when one is morphing to those around them to make friends or fit in. However, in the OSU community if everyone were to start acting like their neighbor, it would lack its diversity. By doing what you want and doing things they way you want to, the individual becomes, “orange”. The third and final step to becoming “orange” is not relying another form of bad faith, this would be not denying facticity. An example of this would be if another student who has a large history of procrastination, says to his roommate, “I will start sooner next time”. This is a form of denying facticity because by just saying you will change something, doesn’t mean anything. The only way to truly change something, if you desire to, would be through taking actions and certain procedures to get there (Lecture, 6/2). Denying one’s facticity leaves the OSU community with no true knowledge of who the individual really is. The process of becoming authentic can be a very grueling, yet a very fulfilling process. A person is the sum of what they have done with their freedom (Lecture, 5/21). Denying transcendence and facticity, allows no room for expressing who a person really is as an individual. It takes away from the diversity and uniqueness the OSU community strives for. When someone finally becomes authentic, that is when they will authentically, “be orange”.