S1

conceptual inquiry regarding meaning » value » authenticity / valuable for me / my 'ought'

 
This node involves envisioning/projecting how one's life ought to be—beginning, not with how it ought to be in the future, but how it ought to be now—and what conditions need to be different in order for it to be as it ought to be. Then, going forward, one can work on bringing about those conditions. Any projection of such an ought presupposes an isn't. So, the projection effectively gives one a personal goal, yet to be realized (in the future). This involves envisioning one's best life and pursuing it.

Doing what's good for oneself has nothing to do with selfishness. Quite the contrary. Doing what's best for oneself requires great responsibility. It means being able to determine what's best when there's no one there to tell you. This requires excellence of judgment, and excellence of judgment is cultivated as one is able to recognize what's best for people in general—oneself, but also the community. And so pursuing one's authentic self must be done from a foundation in doing what's best for the community (see Y1).

More often than not, doing what's best for oneself means doing something that's also good for the community in a way that the community hasn't quite recognized. Being authentic means contributing uniquely to the community. It means doing that which only you are capable of doing (given your background knowledge and experience—your unique history). And the value of that unique contribution is measured relative to the community. Why is this? Well, making the world your own isn't just a matter of arranging your solitary room the way you like it. Making the world your own means exactly that: the larger the world that becomes as you would have it be, the more of your world you are making your own. And even if you're a dictator with absolute rule, doing this requires negotiation—negotiation with the social world.

Presumably what's good for me will mostly overlap with what's good for others as well, but there will be a slight difference. Insofar as everyone's interests aren't already aligned, there will inevitably be some conflict between one's own interests and the interests of others. These conflicts may be due to limited resources, selfish attitudes on the part of individuals, false beliefs on the part of groups, and so on. Potential conflicts will also depend on one's definition of me. Each person has his or her own unique point of view given his or her own unique history of experiences, but for the most part our experiences are similar and our points of view are shared. We should keep in mind that our unique point of view rests on a layered foundation of shared points of view such that we don't become utterly dislodged from the common reality. It is this common reality that individuals can uniquely contribute to.

Being authentic involves projecting unique possibilities into the future, committing oneself to that vision, and following up. And the further into the future the projection, the stronger the commitment. The stronger the commitment, the more strongly integrated the projection must be in the shared history of the community. This means one's commitments aren't to oneself to the exclusion of others, but to oneself as a representative of the community—one that uniquely sees what's best for all in some small way.

 
From the O-phase, this node (the S-node) is involved in the field of active intelligibility (N-node). The unique point of view it represents is the point of view of an agent engaged in an arena in a mode of rhythmic attending, and the grounding experience of active intelligibility is the experience of flow. In a flow state, self-consciousness falls away. One's attention is completely caught up in the activity occurring—an activity with which one is engaged and thus to which one is contributing, but one which is almost always bigger than oneself. The activity might be a team sport, or playing in a musical ensemble, a speech with an audience, or it might be a project at work involving a group effort. In this sense, becoming who one authentically is has to do with resonating with a larger movement. Yes, one needs to be personally prepared to enter that flow, but the goal is to achive a state absent of ego. This suggests that to become who we truly are is to lose ourselves in skillful activities we make our own.

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