“I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being – not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don’t have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn’t play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn’t watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you’re forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you’re genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don’t speak, why you don’t move, why you’ve created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you’ve left your other parts one by one.”Ingmar Bergman
Without examining it too closely, without commenting that the whole POINT of Buddhist meditation is Being (rather, without extending my commentary), I simply wanted to say that on my reading of this he is referencing the Existentialist theme of Authenticity.
This thirst, this honest and sincere sense that something is lacking when one is inauthentic, seems to me to have largely disappeared. I look at all these ghouls hating Trump in unison, who could be, and largely have been, trained to chant in unison “I am an individual. I think for myself. I hate inauthentic people. I value life and justice.” And similar folderol.
Who is Donald Trump? It’s really not a hard question because, whatever else he is, he is authentic. He says what he feels. There is really no inside and outside. He clearly doesn’t say everything he thinks, but he says a large portion of it. He is someone who loves attention, money, beautiful women, and winning. Winning is playing competitive games, putting together great teams, and outworking and outfoxing everyone else. This is his greatest passion. None of this is complicated. You can judge him for his values, but you can’t judge him for failing to live his life his way without apology. He should be an Existentialist hero.
Inherently, when understood sincerely, authenticity is individualistic. No one can tell you who you are. You have to figure it out for yourself.
And I have to wonder if his very brazenness, his AUTHENTICITY, is why so many people hate him. They are too afraid to be who they are, to think independently, to risk censure, to risk being separated from the ghouls on their right and the ghouls on their left.
It’s not just his policies which make the Left so afraid and infuriated: it is his PANACHE. He is a relic of an age when people still sought to stand for something, and to be somebody, and when this was perfectly OK.
I hesitate to say this, but would it not be in some respects accurate to call Trump’s style Gallic? He is a womanizer with a big ego, who loves the good life.
And for those who want to claim Trump has no substance, what recent President has been more consistent in pursuing his campaign promises?