Did you know that Merriam-Webster is unveiling its “word of the year” for 2023? I do because I heard it on NPR. I listen to ‘NPR News Now’ every morning, standing in my kitchen, while sipping coffee. And that is how I learned that Merriam-Webster has a bunch of data crunchers who research the most searched words and determine the word of the year based on the results of their analysis.
I learned that last year, in 2022, the word of the year was gaslighting. And this year, the word of the year is authentic. I learned that this year’s runners up included rizz (slang for romantic appeal), implode, coronation, and dystopian.
This fascinates me. On every level. It’s as if someone asked, hey, what’s everyone thinking about right now? And the answer was, well, authenticity.
Really? How can that be true? And yes, the irony of that statement.
But then, it all makes sense. Right? Of course, authentic is the word of the year. In a world plagued with fake news and misinformation and propaganda and overstimulation and oversharing- it’s no wonder that some of us are seeking the truth of the thing. It’s not a surprise that folks want to understand the crossover point where actions meet values. RIGHT?
I was talking to Sus about the word of the year, and she blithely commented that if we went from gaslighting to authentic, we must be moving in the right direction. Things must be improving. The cynic in me wanted to debate that point. I wanted to share that I don’t think that people are necessarily more authentic, but rather, it’s a search-based fact pattern.
That’s not really fair though.
Let me back track for a moment. I’m going to tell a story. It’s going to feel wholly irrelevant but it’s not.
Every day, Sus asks me who I’ve spoken to. Literally. She will ask who did you talk to today? And I respond with a list or sometimes, a breezy, no one, really. I don’t give much thought to this exchange usually. Sus isn’t particularly nosy (not any more so than your tradish mom figure), so that inquiry doesn’t feel particularly invasive. I don’t have the desire to tell her to mind her own business. I don’t even want to know why she asks me.
And then, I was standing in my small kitchen, sipping coffee, and NPR told me that the word of the year is authentic. And for some godforsaken reason, that led me to wonder why Sus asks me every day who I speak to. I could have just asked her, but instead, I wondered. I pondered the implication behind who I speak to over my day. Sometimes, when I share who I spoke with, she’ll laugh softly and comment that I had my fill of cuckoo for the day. Other times, when I tell her that I mostly kept to myself, she’ll share that she’s glad. She’ll remark that I likely needed a quiet day and so, the self-driven isolation was exactly what the doctor ordered.
My interactions during the day, my conversations, are context. Clues. There are occasions where I don’t have control over the interactions I have during the day (though this is typically from a professional seat) but for the most part, my engagements are my choice. I take calls or silence them. I respond to texts and DMs or table them for another time. I am not a person who is on all the time. I am an introverted extrovert. We all have a finite amount of energy and mine tends to deplete faster when I have to consistently engage, to be “on.” I’ve grown to understand my energy and its movement over the last forty-three years, and so, I am mindful with my interactions. If I’m caught off guard or my choice is removed, then I conserve in other ways. I turn off the lights early and lay in bed, reading. I take a candlelit yoga class in the comfort of my home. I shut down and turn off and disconnect. I preserve.
My preservation, my awareness, is an expression of my most authentic self.
When I push through this barrier, when I disregard what I know to be true about myself and my nature, then I find myself exhausted. Run down, worn out, and incapable of keeping on. The forced retreat takes more out of me. It’s an efforted recovery, and one that takes a much greater toll. I often feel that kind of self-neglect in my physical body. I ache, everywhere.
So, in many ways, my desire to be authentic is not just a meaningful or noble choice, but one that feels critical.
I recognize that the way in which I experience authenticity may not resonate with others and may look nothing like their journey, and that’s mostly because there are many who are fed from the interactions that shrink and drain me. There are so many people who start to feel the energy zap when they’ve had very little engagement, and find themselves craving a meaningful touchpoint.
That is all to say that the base camp for authenticity looks different for many, but the results of departing from that place of nourishment and strength, are unquestionably similar.
This is not just about actions or behavior. This is about the words we speak and the way we think and our treatment of one another. Someone’s authentic self might be troubling and off-putting to others, but for them, it is a space of calm and reasonableness.
What am I actually saying?
Well, authenticity is not veracity. Interestingly, folks who were commenting on the word of the year seemed to link these two words or concepts inextricably. I did earlier, didn’t I? I said that given the state of the world and the seeming lack of truth telling, it’s no wonder that authentic was an oft looked up word.
Is that a solid connection that I made or is that simply a connection that I would wish to make? Sadly, I believe it to be the latter. Someone’s authentic self can be a steaming pile of garbage. Their truest, most honest self can be someone you find deplorable. Someone’s resting state of authenticity can be an exercise in adherence to misguided opinions and theology driven madness.
I believe Sus asks me about who I speak to during the day to get a sense of my day, my mood, my status, my state. She does not ask whether I spent the day truth-telling (though certainly I endeavor to). Rather, she asks whether I spent my time being honest about who I am and what I want and what I need. She asks whether I lived a day filled with authenticity.
Authenticity is an undisputed origin point, but, for whom? Sometimes, the answer can be for everyone and anyone. Is the sky blue? Yes. We all think that the sky is blue. Scientists have taught us that the sky appears blue because of Rayleigh scattering. And yet my most authentic self sees that blue sky as optimistic and clear, and someone else sees that same sky as wintery and endless.
Some days, my most authentic self feels like the world is imploding. I feel like humankind is edging towards a terrifying dystopian reality (filled with book banning and no rights for the marginalized). And then other times, like today, I learn that people most searched the word authentic, and suddenly…
I feel hope.
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