Authentic

Last night, the strangest of years drew to a close with a nice, quiet celebration.

With midnight approaching, Melissa, Tristan, Reese and I sat on our family room floor. We were huddled close together to keep all of us in frame on the camera phone Melissa held outstretched in her hand. Melissa's parents, brothers and their families were animated, faces smiling and voices cheering from the group video call held in Melissa's hand, all of us counting down the last seconds of 2020. Even in this low-key setting, I felt the familiar excitement of the countdown as a small knot in my chest, closing out one year, and bringing in the new. 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 .... Happy New Year! We gave each other kisses, drank our champagne (tempered with apple juice for the boys) and greeted our family remotely, talking over each other on the group call, and texting others on the side with our New Years greetings. It was everything it needed to be, in the only way 2020 offered.

In one of those text threads, my god-sister Michele texted us a photo of her family, the four of them, in their own quiet celebration. Good idea, I thought. So I held up my camera, and put my own family in frame. We held up our plastic champagne flutes, smiled, and memorialized our annual moment of the new year celebration. It was not your typical New Years photo. We're sitting on the floor, dressed in sweatshirts and sweatpants (because that's just what we wear these days). Instead of being surrounded by family and friends, Melissa is holding her phone with everyone on a group video call. There are no decorations, or signs of 2021 in the background as we would look to do in this type of photo. No one is dressed, styled, or groomed ... let's just say it's not a picture that would pass Melissa's 'quality assurance checkpoint' before being posted to social media. But it's very honest, and happy. Authentic. And looking at it now, for that reason - it's probably my favorite 'New Years' photo to-date.

The thought of that is reminiscent of a conversation Tristan and I had earlier yesterday afternoon.

We were talking in the kitchen, and he was mulling over his current personal project: a dissection of the 'Social Dilemna' documentary, with his own observations, criticisms, and perspectives. He's been working on this for a few weeks now, and was at the point where he generated all his notes, and was ready to start crafting his own documentary on the same topic. But he was hesitant. In his research, he had seen other critical opinions of the same subject matter, and he was concerned about how his own project would be received. Whether it would be redundant, or unoriginal.

My response to him was a reflection of my own experience in the matter of writing, or playing music. I suggested to him that the things we create, that we do of this nature - that they are best when they are authentic.

What I mean by 'authentic' are a couple of things. First - that anything we create or express is best if it's an honest reflection of ourselves, of who we are - doing something that we love to do. And in regards to originality - it doesn't matter if it's never been done before, or done a million times over. It could be a writing, a musical piece, a dance, a video, or even just a photo. If we create something honestly as an expression of ourselves, it will always bear our unique imprint - it will always have our unique voice.

And second, and probably more difficult - authenticity means it's not created for others, but for you. We spoke about putting aside other people's judgement - putting aside whether something we create will be received as unoriginal, or not good enough. We proposed that judgement by others is not only uncontrollable, it's irrelevant. And in a world where so many parts of our lives are easily shared on instantly accessible platforms, admittedly this part is not easy. This is something I struggle with in my own hobbies of writing and playing music, both endeavors intrinsically made for sharing with others. In doing these things, I ofter find myself imagining how others will react, watching the videos of music that I recently posted, or even reading the very words I'm writing right now - and I talk to myself (in a nature of self-conversation that is becoming all too common) - I try to coach myself not to worry about it, to put that aside. Because it's not relevant. I try to focus on effectively clarifying a thought or ideas in a small piece of writing, or playing a piece of music the way I hear it inside my own mind, the way it feels it needs to be played. Back to my conversation with Tristan, I relayed to him the same coaching that I say to myself - to express your voice not thinking about the words people will want to hear, but in the words you want to say. To be authentic.

So the conversation naturally begged the question: why share anything at all? Yeah, good question.

In truth, in the context of what we discussed, this framework of authenticity- nothing needs to be shared. Authentic expression of oneself, for oneself - I think that's probably enough. And in the years before 2008, it was.

But the world is different now - and with our ability to share our voices and our experiences, the idea of sharing talks to a different point, a different virtue. The idea of sharing is not about authenticity, but for me, it's about connection - and inspiration.

We all inspire each other in subtle, different ways - in the conversations we have, in the actions we perform that are observed by others. I know I am inspired every day by my own observations of people, observations of you - your acts of kindness, or expressions of art. Or by TV shows or movies that tell their own stories of struggles and overcoming them through virtues. In expressing and sharing ourselves - in telling our own stories, we have the opportunity to continue that dialog - to connect, to participate, and to potentially return the inspirations we receive.

We all know that there is so much content out there that is driven by agenda, designed for less pure motives than personal expression - content that is, to coin an overused term, "fake". In my core, I wish to remain an optimist - I think people can tell the difference between what isn't real, and what is honest. If we can fill that space of sharing with our own authentic voices, isn't that better?

We talked about a video that's made it's way through social media - one that I'm sure you've seen before. It's starts with a scene of a few dozen people sitting on the grass in the park, quietly enjoying the sunny day. Then one of them starts dancing. It is not a performance, and quite frankly, the dancing is not all that good. People start looking at the dancer, and in context, it's a little weird. And you can see that in the initial expressions of judgement, in the snickering. But the dancer doesn't care - he's just having fun, enjoying what he's doing - dancing. Soon, what people see is not the dancing, but the joy of it - the authentic expression of someone's pure unfiltered joy. So a couple of other people start dancing. And you see their joy. And then a few others. And before you know it, everyone is dancing. Everyone is experiencing the same joy. What started with everyone was just sitting apart, ended with everyone dancing together. All started because one person expressed their joy, with conviction - in of all things, dancing. It was authentic, and it was beautiful. Will this happen every time someone dances in the park? Lol, I doubt it. But should it matter? If someone has the conviction to express that kind of joy, openly and honestly, without fear of judgement - I don't know if I'd ever get there, but in my book, by itself - that's pretty awesome. And who knows? Once in a while, someone might just join the dance.

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With the start of the new year, I suppose it's natural to talk of resolutions, of commitments to change.

I'm not sure if I have anything of that nature - at that level of commitment. But I'm genuinely glad the year was kicked off by this conversation, not only as a talk between father and son(s), but as something I'll memorialize as a reminder for myself:

To be authentic, to express in the unique, honest voice that is my own. It may not always be perfect, or even pretty (as you can attest if you heard me accompany Melissa's singing in our last video). But it is honest - and honesty has a beauty all to itself.

And if there's music playing, don't be afraid to dance.

Peace and love, everyone - Happy New Year :)