opaque

as i walked to Balaclava station today, I was looking up at the sky and the passing buildings curiously. It occurred to me that despite walking this path for 22 years, I still manage to see it afresh. I liked that. Anyway, i took refuge from the heat by waiting for the green-pedestrian light underneath the clock at Flinders street station. Whilst waiting there, I delighted in watching a few sets of crowds make the cross. Just seeing how they combat the chaos. The two approaching swarms of bodies momentarily merge in the middle of the street, before being spat-out on the other side - transformed in their configuration. As i watched this, I had two thoughts; The first was, If i was a part of one of the masses getting ready to cross to the other side, and i sat there plotting my future course through the approaching advancing crowd, I would never cross. I would remain rooted to my spot, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of possibilities and condemned to never be able to successfully navigate my way as I planned. The only solution is to give over to the will of the merging mass and be sensitive to where it wills you go to. The second thought I had which seemed significant was; Humans are all naked, with clothes on.

It's easy to forget that. And it's easy to identify others by what we perceive and what others will show us. It's all a little arbitrary. The shirts, the bags, the jeans, the glasses, the tattoos, the attitude, the walk, etc. On the surface - all there is to what we see is what we are presented with. The assumption being that there is nothing underneath the mask which we relate to.  But the choice of mask one adopts says just as much about the individual, as the authentic-self they are attempting to veil.

So the premise is that as we are attempting to say something about ourselves through our presentation, this renders us incongruent with our 'real-self'. But why can't the mask be an expression / extension of the authentic self? Indeed, if we can make assumptions on the individual based on the the nature of their attempt to 'veil' the authentic self, then how can their mask NOT be an expression of the authentic-self? How can a person NOT be authentic? Sartre said that a person acts in bad-faith when we make choices which are in-congruent with our nature at that time in that moment - with our 'dasein'. He says an inauthentic mode of existence consists of lacking awareness of personal responsibility for our lives and passively assuming that our existence is controlled by external forces. What I need explained to me - is if living in-authentically is forfeiting responsibility by denying my personal freedom and choice, then what if I choose to live in-authentically? What if i choose to make an inauthentic decision? If the world is meaningless and i create my own meaning and I (in a moment) act in-authentically, then i am making a CHOICE to act in-authentically - which means I am acting authentically.
That's confusing - the point is; there is all this talk in authentic self and inauthentic self and living in 'good' and 'bad' faith - but none of it makes sense to me.  I accept that I am my choices, so how can I  NOT be authentic?