Authority. Is it real and legitimate? Is it illusion and fantasy? Is there no authority? Is there a misunderstanding through lack of clarity?
What about authenticity? Are we really living an authentic life when others are authorities and have authorship over parts of our lives?
Reality, Truth and Morality
We are authentic by being authors and authorities of our own lives, through objective understanding of reality, truth and morality. To be authors living in authentic alignment with truth and morality, we are to equalize and align our subjective inner-reality with the objective outer-reality. The map should reflect the territory (reality) and know how to navigate it with moral truth.
Otherwise we are inauthentic by being deprived of understanding objective reality, truth and morality. We are buying into, believing (trust, loyalty, faith) and following another's authority and authored narratives about reality and how to live. If we take falsity as truth, or believe in fantasy unreality, then we are reduced in our capacity to authentically live and navigate reality as best we can. Even ignorance of certain things will have us walk on paths of misunderstanding, authoring our lives through ignorance and better navigation.
To live in a subjective inner-reality that doesn't align properly with the objective outer-reality, creates a fracture, disequilibrium or misalignment in our ability to navigate, move and progress through the objective reality we actually live in. We are binding ourselves to externalized beliefs in authority, as legitimate ways of living, through the trust, loyalty and faith we put into these beliefs, or the trust, loyalty and faith we put into those who influence and invoke these beliefs into us.
Etymology
Authority:
"*invention, advice, opinion, influence, command*," from auctor "*master, leader, author*". Meaning "power to enforce obedience" is from late 14c.; meaning "people in authority" is from 1610s. Authorities "those in charge, those with police powers" is recorded from mid-19c.
Author:
from Old French auctor, acteor "*author, originator, creator, instigator*", from Latin auctorem "*enlarger, founder, master, leader*," literally "*one who causes to grow*", from auctus, augere "*to increase*" (see augment).Author, auctor, auctus, augere is about augmenting, increasing and cause to grow. Something is "grown" into manifested reality where it was not before, instigated by the author who founded it. From the seed in consciousness to the manifested growth in reality that they created. Anything you create has been authored by you.
Authentic:
from Greek authentikos "*original, genuine, principal*," from authentes "o*ne acting on one's own authority*,", from autos "self" + hentes "doer, being," from PIE *sene- "to accomplish, achieve."
Being authentic, real and genuine, is to be the author of our own life, in alignment with reality and principled living, which maximizes accomplishing of our goals in reality.
Going against what is right, good and true, is going against a higher truer potential of the right way of living, and ultimately going against ourselves, our optimal survival through reciprocal cooperation. Morality is the principal capital in life for living socially.
This is based in reality and grounded thinking, not allowing someone else to condition you to accept a belief (like external authority) without verification. You follow a determination of morality, truth and anything else by being able to verify it as being true, not simply following what others claim to be true. Be it corrupted or not, accurate or not, it is up to you to determine what is right from wrong, true from false.
Source, Source
Externalized Authority
Notice the current conventional meaning of authority is the corrupted concept that people believe in, developed after the original meaning of the word. Authority, authenticity and authorship, are powers divested from ourselves and put into an external power, often a specialized group. We subsume our innate authorship to be our own authority, and follow the authority of another instead of ourselves. We live inauthentically rather than authentically.
A person who teaches the authority of morality as the way of living, that anyone else can verify in their own life, is someone to pay attention to (but not blindly follow). People will recognize this person understands reality, what to do, and how to live.
They gain credibility, reputation and respect for their understanding of reality. This is how natural leaders are formed. This is how people can be influenced into seeing morality and doing the right things. This is wisdom, for wisdom is phio-sophia, the love wisdom which is how to engage in right-actions, not wrong actions.
"Government" as a loose idea, can be used in such a way as an advisory council to influence and guide our choices in life, but not dictating what we do. It would be people who have no power over others other than the power we all have: to speak and influence others according to reality, or unreality.
Only verification through reality, of the concepts they speak, can determine if what they speak is true or not. To follow their concepts blindly will produce the same centralized authority we have now. Those who succeed in influence will do so from the result of being recognized for being wise and being able to influence others towards morally positive outcomes. That is the "magic"/influence of life, and not in an evil way.
Part 2 will deal more with explaining internal vs. external authority.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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