Being authentic versus being restrained

"Get Real" or " Stay funky always"- these are slogans that young people always tell each other. This means that we must stay "real" always and stay true to ourselves and our emotions. We must express our happiness, anger and unhappiness always and never deny them to the public and always.

There are another group of people who prefer to keep their emotions to themselves. Not because they do not feel anything but rather they do not feel comfortable revealing what they feel to everyone. At the same time, it could be at the same time, their job requires them to less emotional and more rational and therefore any display of emotions might betray their biases and prejudices. They prefer to play safe when coming to handling people and do not readily express their euphoria or anger in the event that their upset a certain group of people

The problem with "staying real" or authentic is that we want to feel good about the whole situation. It is precisely that we want to express our true emotion that we want to feel a sort of catharsis that we wish to be authentic. But is the wish to be authentic that important.

In Western culture, where individualism takes precedence, the need to be authentic is a given when we communicate to each other. It is as if only when we are "real", can we express ourselves truthfully. But I suspect that the need to authentic is more down to the need to attract attention rather than meaningful communication. It is precisely when we are "real" that we are able to display our "grit" and demonstrate the "real" side of the world. We are not trying to sugar-coat our words and bluff you but rather, we are trying to show the "real" side, we are on your side. Everything is just propaganda. That's what always being authentic is about.

But on the hand, being restrained and measured is often seen as cold and calculative. But the need to practice restraint also means that we are trying to prevent ourselves from revealing too much. What are we hiding, it might be nothing much really.

It has been argued that rather than seeing emotions has merely biologically deterministic, which means that we have no control, we should see emotions as a choice. And when we express emotions, we are in effect trying to judge the effect of a particular action. Hence therefore when we express emotions, we are expressing a judgement on a particular action. Therefore, when we are angry about "John" for stealing the car, the object is not the car per se but rather the value that it infringes- which is not respecting private property.

Conversely, when we are angry about something, it does not necessarily mean that we are right, but rather we are expressing a judgement based on my value system. This means that expressing outrage at a particular act, does not necessarily means that we are universally true. In effect, someone might actually be outraged with our "outrage".

Therefore, in effect, actually being calm and collected about emotions is not being cold but rather guarding ourselves against being overzealous and judgemental. Yes, it can be true that someone might forgive us for being emotional, but it does not mean that being emotional means that we are right.

In my opinion, being calm and collected is better than always being authentic and always displaying our true emotion as it does not always mean that what we are feeling is always right. We can be elated or angry at something but it can also means that someone might have to suffer our emotions should he/she not share the same thinking. One can get emotional over someone's emotion as well.