Authentic Orange

Submitted by: Madilynn Gerritsen

To be authentic means being true to yourself. Doing what you want to do and living your live in accordance to your happiness and fulfillment. To me, authenticity means being happy; doing what you believe in and not caring about what other people do or say. It means recognizing your uniqueness and what makes you, you. Authenticity can mean different things for different people. As for philosophers like Heidegger, he saw authenticity as looking at your live in a different light, to think about our unavoidable death and realizing if you are making the right decisions. As for Nietzsche, he saw authenticity as not conforming to society and the unjust herd that pushes you in a direction that might not be what you intended, but it might be easy. For Kierkegaard, the meaning to life and truth was through god, and through finding those truths and meaning, authenticity will become a part of you.

As a student at OSU, becoming an individual in the community may be challenging because as Kierkegaard said, you become part of a crowd (lecture 5/5/15). You’re just another face in a lecture hall or stadium. Maybe you just go to the bar or a sports game because that’s what the crowd or your friends are doing. Being authentic in these situations may be difficult for some. One thing that I would encourage is to think. Think about what is going on. Think about how you feel. Think about if what you’re doing is what you actually want to do. Recognize your feelings, beliefs, and morals.

Take a step back. Slow down and look at the bigger picture. There is a concept known as da-sein, or thrown projection (lecture 4/16/15). Throwness meaning we are thrown into the world as it was before we got there. Things we do, tasks, values, beliefs, etc., are thrown at us and we are expected to catch them. Meanwhile, we forget being because of all the things being thrown at us. We lose ourselves and we become absorbed by them, for example, social media. I encourage everyone to take a step back. Put down your phones and technology and take a look at the world around you. People are becoming lost in technology, when they need to be open to reality to see your projection of how you could be living. Da sein; be in the moment.

Lastly, there are pressures from all over directing us in one-way or another. These pressures could be social, political, or economic. These pressures effect how we express our freedom. Freedom is one of the main concepts of the third existential theme, humanism that we discussed in lecture (lecture 5/7/15). One of the main points of this theme is the pursuit of freedom and identity, which is important for finding yourself and becoming authentic. As a college student, it is important to explore your freedom while you still have it before you take on more commitments and responsibilities of being an adult (lecture 5/26/15). I encourage everyone to embrace your youth and freedom. Go out and explore. You have the freedom to do almost anything with your lives, so find your passion and what you love and hold on those things.

To me, being authentic is a huge part of being happy. Following your heart and beliefs can make your life more rewarding and authentic. Think about the way you’re living and the way you feel. If you’re not happy, change something. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Are you where you want to be? Are you exploring your freedom, or are you trapped in routine like in Kafka’s metamorphosis (Kafka’s Metamorphosis)? Gregor was working at a job he hates to support people who didn’t appreciate him. He went through a change, but not a change of the self, a change of the body. If you are living inauthentically and are not happy, make a change of the self.

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”.