100% Genuine Authentic

I've been thinking baout authenticity. Because being authentic is being happy in your skin. If you're authentic, then you are happy, and getting in flow is easier, faster, simpler.

Being authentic means being honest with youself. And being honest with others.

Honesty to others is easy. More or less. You just have to be straightforward, and tell people how you feel.

Honesty to youself is harder.

And if you're not honest to yourself, you won't be honest to others - because you won't know what the truths really are

All my life, I've believed I wanted things - money, wealth, fame, success. But I'va also believed I wanted to please others, to stand in line, to be a good boy. In fact none of this is quite true. I want some of these things - and I want some of the things these activities can give me. But I don't want them. They are not who I am inside - they are just how I act.

So let me introduce myself.

I'm a paradox. 'sokay, so is everyone else I've met. One thing I've learned is that so long as people admit they are a mass of contradictions, then they are some of the best - and most consitent people you meet. Be consitently contradictory, and you're alright by me.

I'mn a scientist and an engineer. I love to play with things and see how they work. I love to take things apart. I love to make predictions and be proven right - or - even better - be proven wrong and laern something in the process. I'm good at it. Cambridge degree, all that sort of thing. But I'm not like lots of scientists.

Because I like to think out of the box.

Now lots of scientists do this, but they stay inside the box called 'what is acceptable for a scientist to talk about'. I'm different - at least on the inside. I love to learn about heretical theories and beliefs. And I love to see what I can synthesize into my own worldview. Itsa all part odf the engineer in me. I'm like any true engineer: If I see a big red button maked 'Danger, do not touch', I'm bloody well going to pressit, firmly and with relish, if I think it will teach me something about the world.

And so, yeah, I have self help books. And new age books. I meditate. And I care about my dreams. I practice the law of attraction. But I don't belive any of it. I use what works. The law of attraction - well, books on that subject might as well be called 'a system for integrating all the really useful things positve psychology has discovered into your life'. You don't need to belive it. Somewhere in the process, I find things that work. Some of these things need thr trappings - there is obviously something in the weird and wonderful trappings that make them work better - others just work on their own. Either way, they're fun. They keep me occupied. And, I think, they make me a better person.

I love to learn. But I lack focus. So my areas of interest are wide and shallow. This isn't a problem, because I'm good at learning, and good at joining the depths - you find things in my shallows which you'll never see in the deepest trenches of some more focused peoples oceans. My interests, as of today are various things computer related (languages, pattern recognition, embedded programming), business systems, financial trading, self improvement, physics - and what I can only describe as 'alternative physics', writing, reading, mysticism, meditation and positive psychology. There is probably more... but this is todays choice.

I hate people. People annoy me. Its amazing I'm married. People are these horrible, changable, uncontrolable things that seem to care more about their own problems than they do about mine. Actually, thats a lie. I care too much about people. I care about what they think abouot me -0 about how much I embarrass myself in front of them, about how much better they are than me... and about how unworthy I am. You see, I'm conflicted. What I know is that I'm an introvert. I get engergised on my own, and tired by people. I do need people -but people I trust, in small doses. And I'm shy. Because thats a defence against being hurt. Hurt by other people. Its a battle I face. Work - where I'm surrounded by people - hurts. Its tiring. More tiring than it would be if I was entraverted.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a fantastic actor and a great public speaker - these are skills I've picked up in the process of fighting against the shy. I enjoy them (in the right sized doses) and they pick me up, and send me on endorphin highs. But I still havn't learned how to cold call, or how to do that mingling with a room full of people I don't know at a conference thing.

And I'm writing this - because it gets me over some of these things. I get to use what I learn - and to put it into shapes that work for me. I get to talk about it - breaking down some of my barriers of shyness. I get to play with writing wonderful, witty, whirly, words. And I'm doing something. Creating something. Making a mark on a map that is mine and mine alone.

I need to make this mark.

Thats me.

Actually, I havn't got started yet. I'm disorganised - but need things to go exactly to plan. I'm scared, yet sometimes hugely confident. I could rule the world - but have trouble getting promoted at work. I have delusions of grandure somedays and adequacy the others.

I'm not authentic. But I'm becoming moreso.

And now you know me better.

ANd I hope to lie to you less in the future.