I mentioned in my last blog that living authentically is a presence - an essence.  So, how is this realized?   I mean, here we are – we just kinda got thrown into this world that already existed before we were a twinkle in our daddy’s eyes.

         Daily, one adapts to everyday demands in order to function in the environment.  In the everyday living, one may be influenced by the world through language, culture, religion, experience, time, or role.  The primordality of Being, then, sort of dissolves and becomes hidden and we innocently, and consequently become inauthentic and separate, seeing things as subject-object.  This absorption and “inauthenticness” leads to separation, distracting one from what is important.    And with this absorption, separation allows for the “I” to exist.  This “I” is an individual entity, and not the Authentic Self.  When one sleeps, there are no stories of separateness.  When one awakens, the “I” arises along with thoughts about “who” one is.  This “I” is not the Authentic Self, it is the inauthentic self.  “I” arises and says “I am.”  The body demarcates and separates the “I” from the world.

          As separate from others, “I” is evaluative, and relates subject to object.  As such, this dualism - the structure of the “I” that says “I am,” is the both the ontic structure that negotiates with the world and the ontological structure that provides the possibility for those negotiations.   As the philosopher Martin Heidegger discusses in Being and Time, the ontic “I” must be understood in terms of an ontological Authentic potentiality for Being.   Each experience is a realization of the Self as Being, and therefore the Authentic Self is without limit because it is aware of itself as existing.