Narrative Authenticity: Breaking Free from the Shadows of Comparison
I shouldn’t have begun reading other people’s essays.
“I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.”
― Michel de Montaigne
Montaigne wrote in his essays how he felt about the way he wrote, not too great. In his essay A Consideration on Cicero, he tells you how he likes to write. He doesn’t like to adorn a lot what he says, but rather, to speak more bluntly.
Earlier, I began reading some articles on Medium about whatever, and upon reading them, I began to become anxious about what I was going to write about. Almost instantaneously, I began to wonder whether what I was going to write would be better, comparing myself.
A mistake of course, because what I write shouldn’t be guided by comparing myself with people who have lives so different from mine.
We all should write about what we know. No life is boring, if you look close enough. That’s the reason why I love documentary films, even more than movies. Especially more than Marvel movies. They are real. They show you life as it is for people in different parts of the world, and this facade that we constantly look through falls apart to give way to an approach to an aspect of real life that helps you understand yourself and others a bit more.
