an SA take on authenticity

Prepare yourself, readers.  It’s been a pessimistic morning.

 

So I have been thinking, what does the word authentic mean, in my life and in this world.  So, naturally, I googled it.  Merriam-Webster made me laugh.  Like I really LOLed.  Get this:

1: real or genuine: not copied or false

2: made to be or look just like an original

So if something is real or genuine, not copied, it is made to look just like the original?  Interesting?

How about authentic tourism?  All these backpackers and hotels on the beach, offering “the real South Africa.”  What is this real South Africa of which they market?  They offer surf lessons!  That’s pretty cool.  They offer shuttles to all the fancy restaurants on the boardwalk.  Sweet!  They offer township tours, equipped with a real life tour guide from the township himself, ready to take you to see the “real south Africa.”  They have these big busses that barely make it down the unpaved, rubble roads, and all the tourists sit in the AC buses, snapping the artsy photos of the authentic life.  But HEY, its real or genuine, right?  Not copied or false?  I’ve been on that bus, eating my tomato and cheese sammy.  I had the artsy camera, and I saw this spectacle through the tinted glass.  I saw the real; the authentic! LOLOLOLOLZ

Well here I am the other day, minding my own business, picking up one of my kids to solve some life ending catastrophe of the week, and one of these busses rolls through MY hood!  Now I see the flashes going and I’m now part of these artsy pictures of the “authentic tour.”  Me and my little blue car that my kids tell me looks like a piece of Tupperware.  We are part of authenticity!  Now I am not saying that I’m fully acculturated, fully integrated into being a true New Brighti-ian (or whatever one would be called), because that’s certainly not even remotely the case.  I’m just saying wow, does it seem like quite the façade, quite the spectacle from this side of the looking glass.

Once again I have posed this narcissistic, pessimistic view of an industry that is just trying to enlighten people (oh and make money), but what is the solution.  I certainly don’t have one?  Now with this Maddie chick here, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how I can open doors for other people who are interested in an authentic experience, (whatever the heck that means).  How do I do that from my blue Tupperware car, you ask?  Well, that indeed, is the question of the week.  Maddie, and two of her friends from her Namibia adventure have been living my (authentic) life this week. 

Wyatt and Ema (and Maddie of course) are some incredible people.  And funny enough, I would absolutely use the word authentic to describe them!  They are real, genuine, and not interested in the copied or false.  The lives that they lead are not trivialized with mundane things like shopping malls, or clubs (as mine sometimes has been:/).  They were far more interested in meeting people, seeing the real, and experiencing the genuine.  Oh and they live outta their tent, so that’s pretty ballsy. 

We parted yesterday, and being the artistic souls that they are, this is what they crafted:

 

Here, Wyatt impeccably captured my life:  My home (Newton Park) and my hood (New Brighton), and at risk of sounding very very corny, I'm pleased to say that I have come to know an authentic love for each.

And just a bit of a shout out to a certain 651 reader who I know is reading this: I think it is important for us all to analyze what is authentic in our lives, and certainly decipher what authentic love means. Ask for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change; courage to change the things we can; and wisdom to know the difference. For me, Wyatt crushed it with this simple line drawing, and for that, I am forever thankful. 

And my parting thoughts, I hope that whoever took a picture of me from that tour bus is able to look back at it someday and know that they too could be on this side.  Its pretty great.