The Formula of Authenticity
A Psychological and Philosophical Equation
As presented to the Emerson Society
By Garry Fitchett – President
“Independence is for the very few. It is a privilege of the strong. Whoever attempts it enters a labyrinth and multiplies a thousand fold the danger of life. Not least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way…..
- Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil/#29
There is a formula, a first principle axiom, capable of bringing one to more fully understand their soul, and to come to understand the nature of the spirit residing within this soul: in essence, to come to a place in the road where one can truly know – who they are as an individual. And if such talk of searching for your soul and its spirit feels hyperbolic or pretentious, then lets just characterize this process as a venture, an exercise in open-mindedness, to find out, ‘What makes us tick’.
It is first important to know that no one can look at another person, and by employing science, logic, math, or reason, know what they are for: what their purpose is. One can do this for a pair of scissors, but not for another human being. And, in-turn, the task of finding a meaning for our very own lives exists on a higher plane, and transcends appearances, science, logic, and mathematics.
I submit to you that there is a formula, previously illusive, to help us decipher ourselves. For the purpose of this very important journey ‘into oneself’ there is a method, and this formula exemplifies and illuminates the method. For every answer capable of being found has, by definition, a method – a method of discovery: some very simple, others convoluted and arcane. However, once found, and more importantly, understood, this formula can be used, again and again, by anyone desirous of finding their answer. AND WHAT AN ANSWER TO BE FOUND. However, please be warned that applying this formula is not for the weak as noted by Nietzsche and using it, while illuminating, can be a very arduous process indeed. Only the strongest among us really want to come face to face with themselves.
To begin, and before you can understand any subject, concept, or truth we must first come to know the truth of who we are. This by definition, maybe default, has to be our starting point. However, this is no easy thing. Why? Because chronologically it does not work out for us in such a fashion. We, unwittingly, are born into a world that for thousands of years has already been designed, developed, and formulated by others who have come before us. It is not unreasonable to think that some errors may have occurred: maybe these designers were asleep, or at least a little drowsy. A society engineered by generations of men and women who were not always up to such an important task.
Our first goal as we unavoidably come into such a world, wide-eyed and innocent, is to earnestly learn of our immediate environment and come to understand it as best we can. And low and behold we find ourselves up to the task being the curious intelligent beings we naturally are. Then, as time goes by and as we start to get a grip on how society functions we find, most directly, our predominant key role is to fit-in, assimilate, and to conform to this ready-made world. Rare, indeed, is a person who thinks otherwise.
Therefore, the need and desire to know who we really are, meaning our nature and essence comes, if it ever comes, much later. This task, maybe our most important one, comes after we have already done a lot of study, looking, living, and a lot of trying to conform. Habits like these are long in the making, deep in their resolve and, understandably hard to break. It is easy to become blind to them. It has been said - A fish is the last to discover water. So therefore, it is easy to dive headlong into this accepting, mechanical, conforming life which is all quickly solidified by habit. Habits which, usually forever, furrow our lines of action because they channel our chains of thought.
However, a few having failed to completely succumb to societal forces begin to approach a point where understanding, awareness, and the primal urge to know what makes them tick overwhelms their so-far rather mechanical, faux-fabricated life. This task, hiding in plain site for most, is suddenly viewed just over the horizon from now a higher and newly discovered vantage point. It is here where a hard break in the daily chain of habitual thought and action is necessary. And break it we must if our life is to ever approach the heights it was created to achieve: A life full of imagination, freedom, creativity, and power; full of emotion and joy.
But HOW? Oh, what a question. For those who feel this urge to live a life like this, even if felt only rarely and then only faintly, is not easily forgotten. We know we have a problem: to find a way out of our self-imposed maze that society has lent a big hand in constructing. We know, instinctively and maybe more accurately, intuitively, that there is a way, a plan, or possibly some strategy that could be employed that will do the trick for us. Something bringing us to an action point of relief even if not absolute success. We have been molded by our past experience no-doubt, but it is also true that we are shaped by the person we hope to become. The Formula presents a sure way to know our unique individuality which allows us the opportunity to stop living as a manufactured personality, complete with its fears, doubts, and envies that have, over time, taken root in our being. This formula has the capacity to transport one from the world of the already-made to the realm of the being-made.
Can an order as tall as this have a simple answer? NO. But it can have a formula. An efficient formula efficaciously performing the task of finding something that each in his or her own way is searching for; then make it understandable and, more importantly, actionable.
This formula, or prescription, as true and precise as a mathematical equation, epitomizes a relationship of cause and effect. This formula is designed to disentangle our genuine self from the mind-made machinery of a personality bent by the throes of society. A formula finding something that is just SO, as it was designed to be. A formula to un-riddle ourselves and to find our proper place. A formula like this exist and it will be revealed in simplistic clarity so that all who wish to know, may know.
The Formula designed to break a pattern and cycle of inauthenticity goes like this.
This formula with its components and relationships, will be explained in detail so that you can make it operational and useful for yourself: So that you have the opportunity to get some good out of it and learn how to make it work for you. Work for you along the lines of discovering your true individuality and then live true to that unique self the rest of your life.
The Formula you see here - goes like this: YOU (U) equals your attractions(a) multiplied by your intuitions(i) divided by what you innately Will(w) multiplied by forever or infinity.
You (U) equals your attractions (a) times your intuitions (i)
divided by what you innately will (w) times Infinity
Again, to reiterate, this philosophic formula is designed to discover one’s true nature, essence, and authenticity. The goal of devising this formula is to have people come to know their essential individuality by having a working way of discovering this self, and then to live true to it all. People striving to unfold their true-self in a good thing. A good thing for not only oneself, but I feel for the health and well-being of society in general. Let those operating true to their nature procure protractor, compass, and rule become the architects of society.
In short, the formula is designed to light the way for you to become your self, your whole self, and nothing but your self. The history of humankind is hallmarked by a trail of growing individuation, and with growing individuation, growing freedom. But, historically, this process has been glacial at best. The formula moves the pace from glacial to, at least, gradual. Its ultimate and over-arching objective is two-fold: One, to bring to one’s conscious attention the essence of one’s true and indivisible spirit, and two, to have this knowing, powerful, imaginative ‘thing’ through you, - meaning your heart, mind, and body, - exert its positive and loving Will upon its environment. A wise man once said that all human action is a form of play. The definition of the word ‘play’ indicates that one is doing something they like, even love, which means doing something that speaks to and satisfies one’s nature and essence. But how does one proactively figure all of this out? Here the Formula plays its role and lends a hand.
To begin, this formula will be explained in a summary format so that you will immediately get the gist of what it is all about. This will allow you to get your arms around the dynamics involved in executing the formula.
The Formula Explained in Summary
You (U) means the true, essential, real, unique, unencumbered, one-of-a-kind you. The powerful, imaginative, and naturally creative you. A YOU that has risen above - or at least can see above - having once been inevitably ‘fallen’, as the German philosopher Martin Heidegger characterized it. That is to say ‘fallen’ into the structure, requirements, and expectations of the society in which we find ourselves living day to day. This is a You not forged from external determinations, but from one’s own essential nature.
The (a) stands for ATTRACTION, meaning what you are most naturally attracted to including: people, places, things, ideas, notions, and areas where you give easy and unbridled attention in your daily life. Attraction indicates desire: It is both cognitive and emotive in nature.
The (i) represents INTUITION. Intuition is a form of constructive imagination providing sudden and immediate insight into a thought, problem, purpose, or plan that one has been actively contemplating, whether consciously or subconsciously, and usually for some length of time. This intuition emanates from what one knows and not what one merely believes.
So therefore, The Formula to this point is as follows: The one and only YOU (U) equals what attracts your Attention(a) multiplied by what you Intuit(i). All of this is divided by your WILL(w). Now the concept of Will, as used here, is not that revered trait that makes us stick to a task we have already decided to do. Rather, Will, in this context, means, self-will, and is a palpable force coming from deep within oneself. This type of ‘Will’ means one is not acting from a ‘will’ alien to one’s own. I believe one’s ‘Will’ exposes one’s highest spiritual nature. This is a Will that desires things, people, conditions, etc., and wishes to exercise its inherent powers to achieve, gain, acquire, or improve a situation. Will, as positioned in this equation, is the common denominator of both Attraction and Intuition. And the reasons are as follows: one surely needs to be aware, cognizant, even call it alive enough to feel one’s WILL as it is attracted to that with which it has an affinity and two, the exercising of human Will is required to detect and discern one’s intuitions and not merely discount them as frivolous, even crazy.
Furthermore, the Will has an even bigger role in developing the conviction to act on one’s attractions and intuitions. Having the capacity to not only feel, but be conscious of one’s Will, in the mist of exercising its instinctual powers, places one most immediately in rarified air. Will, its power and direction, is always forward looking and Will, as Hannah Arendt said, “is an organ for the future as memory is an organ for the past”. I submit to you tonight that what one is attracted to, what one intuits, and what one Will’s comprise the three frames of what I will characterize as the doorway to your essential self. Knowing and understanding this formula allows, inspires, and gives you the conviction to step over a previously illusive threshold. In that glorious step one’s destiny’s is finally being painted by the hands of its only possible artist, YOU. This artist, finally in-tune to it’s attractions, intuitions, and will creates a painting beyond reproach. When one asks the question, ‘What does my unique spirit bring to where I now find myself?’: The answer has to entail one’s attractions, intuitions, Will, and of course energy.
Now, please note that there are people who don’t consciously use this formula, but through luck, brilliance, pre-destination, or whatever reap its benefits
nonetheless. This happens. But for the others who grope and strain attempting to find their way – their purpose, their meaning – will usually look first to logic and reason. But these while efficacious on many fronts prove sterile in this solely human even spiritual endeavor. So, therefore, what is one to do? What tool can be used to supply an answer that must be uniquely individual to every person, or seeker. Here one must recognize that commonalities do exist and those commonalities, available to us all, are our Attractions, Intuitions, and what one Will’s.
Emerson said it brilliantly with, “What attracts my Attention shall have it.” The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza did the same favor for us when he noted that when we have an intuition, “We are seeing God’s thoughts”. And finally the concept of Will was perfectly and succinctly explained by the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, when he uttered the words, “Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot Will what he wants.” Rudolf Steiner said it this way, “Man can, it is true, do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.”
To sum-up: Attractions, while an internal impulse, are originated from ‘without’. That is, something comes into our field of vision and we are either attracted to it or not. Intuitions obviously come from ‘within’, and Will, for all I know may come from and be originated in one’s spirit housed within one’s soul. When one recognizes their attractions, and takes them into account; then listens to their intuitions and gives them true weight, the Will - the actual engine behind it all - always finds itself to be soothed and sustained.
The Formula serves as a window, or maybe portal into one’s authentic self and once viewed, even if opaquely at first, allows one’s spirit to begin to unfold itself.
Finally, the infinity symbol indicates that this process for every individual will carry-on forever: marking the belief that your current life, now, here on this Earth, is but a small small segment of your entire spiritual existence. I believe we are living our eternal life right now; this is part of it. When we one-day die from this earthly existence our body will not discard our spirit, but our everlasting spirit will discard our body, and on and on. We come, dwelleth a while, then go. But back of this our spirit lives forever.
“That which brought you into being, will continue you in being;
that which created you, will recreate you; that which generated
you, will regenerate you; that what breathed life into you, will
continue to breath life into you – if you will but set its powers
into activity.”
So, one sees that this philosophical formula’s components of attention, intuition, and self-will comprise the three key fountainheads of one’s true persona; an authentic persona steeped in self-determination, freedom, creativity, and power. For it is this one-of-a-kind exacting puzzle-piece, self-forged that fits, most sincerely, into the world of necessity where we all reside. In this self-discovered place one operates supremely by exercising their own unique brand of creativity, freedom, and power.
Paying attention, exploring, pursuing, and exercising the formula’s three golden attributes or components allows one to break-through to the primary sources of one’s life: to become a true original and authentic. Someone who breaks through the barbed-wire of ‘outside’ influences whether they be societal, family, governmental, religious, or whatever. Once the formula is understood and employed a sort of metamorphosis occurs transfiguring one from self-imposed slavery to the environs of creative labor and life. By employing The Formulaone’s thoughts and action become original and are no longer predominated by outside social forces; it allows what could be considered an inner genius to have the chance to finally show itself. I once heard a talk from someone who had worked directly with the man Walt Disney and he said Walt would comment, “We are all born geniuses, but only a few make it through”. Finally, we are transparent to our own self. We are free and spontaneous to feel, think, and say what is ours.
In closing, The Formula shows the way for a person to live out his/her life in a non-determined way which enables, even fosters, self-determination. Erich Fromm in Escape from Freedom says, ‘there is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves’.
The Formula also helps one to understand their true motives that drives each of us from cradle to grave. Picasso is credited with saying something to the effect that life is like a train, it moves very fast, objects are hard to distinguish as they pass, and above all, you never get to see the engine. So the question is lit - What is this engine? What is the driving force that hurls us towards ‘things’ throughout our lives? Employ the formula and become one of the few who ever get to see the engine. The Russian philosopher, Nicola Berdyaev says you will never be ‘free’ until you find your reasons.
By incorporating The Formula one is immediately on a path to personal freedom because it stimulates one with the knowledge, or at least an inkling or insight into why you feel inspired and motivated to do certain things.
The formula allows one to live creatively in the world of necessity, while at the same time being free from the world. Self-determined means acting from one’s self-will, newness, and freedom. This does not mean that one can rise above the world of necessity, where we all reside, but it allows one to be self-determined and uniquely creative within this world.
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The formula represents a conduit from the implied negative viewpoint of ‘freedom from’, to the more positive viewpoint of ‘freedom for’: Freedom for one’s creative life and all that that idea implies.
Yet, no matter how efficaciousness the formula in increasing our level of freedom we will find ourselves always operating in a world of necessity; where food, water, shelter; the tool of money, indispensable in the ubiquitous areas of life where money works, and all the rest of it is waiting for us. The Formula allowing your individual, free, powerful, and creative essence to come to the fore, offers you great advantage to be the best contributor that you can possibly be in this ‘world of necessity’. Granted our world is complete with its never-ending barrage of external influences both material and intelligent. However, now you can transition from externally determined acts to creative acts spawned and inspired by Attraction, Intuition, and Self-Will: realizing your higher nature and standing most erect and free.