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The 52:52:52 project, launching both on this site and on social media in early 2024 will help you address 52 issues with 52 responses over 52 weeks.

A Mundane Comedy is Dominic Kelleher's new book, which will be published in mid 2024. The introduction is available here and further extracts will appear on this site and on social media in the coming months.

This site addresses what's changing, in our own lives, in our organisations, and in wider society. You'll learn about key changes across more than 150 areas, ranging from ageing and time, through nature and animals, to kindness and love...and very much else inbetween.

Halcyon's aim is to help you reflect on how you can better deal with related change in your own life.

What's Changing? - Authenticity

Authenticity

 

Please see below selected recent authenticity-related change.

 

See also:

 

March 2024

  • Knowing and understanding who we are can help us to live more authentically. This doesn’t necessarily make life easier, but it can make our priorities clearer, help us feel more energised and motivated, and decrease feelings of self-doubt. Many people seek out advice or coaching due to a desire to have more purpose and meaning in their lives, and to help them live more authentically.

 

September 2023

 

June 2023

  • 76% of metaverse users in the US, UK, and China claimed that their avatars better convey their "unique individuality" compared with the real world, according to a 2023 report by Wunderman Thompson. To meet this demand, digital avatars are becoming more expressive, diverse, and are amassing millions of users. Advancements in generative AI and 3D technologies mean it's now possible to infer emotions, behaviors and interactions onto digital counterparts, e.g. Adidas introduced dynamic NFTs, which adapt and evolve based on users' decisions and engagement. Microsoft Teams rolled out customisable 3D avatars with reaction features and TikTok launched AI-powered avatars.

 

December 2022

 

April 2022

 

March 2022

  • In her 60s, Simone de Beauvoir wrote a 650-page book La vieillesse, to reveal the truth about ageing. She argued that ageing isn’t only a biological decline: society crushes ageing bodies through ageist discrimination. And yet, Beauvoir noted, elderhood also has the potential to bring us closer to authenticity than at any other stage of life. For her, being authentic means becoming creators of our vibrant selves, shaped through our choices. But older people face myriad challenges that warp their choices and deter them from stretching towards authenticity. Old age, for Beauvoir, should be celebrated, but to have something to celebrate, we must keep working towards a better world, one free from ageism, so that all are free to create themselves in authentic ways, and where no one has to exist as a living corpse. 

 

January 2022

 

November 2021

  • For Psyche, the central question in the last life stage is: have I led an authentic, meaningful life? It requires us to ask whether we’ve lived according to our core values, followed our moral compass and acted consistently in the direction it points. A sense of fulfilment promotes not only satisfaction with a life well lived, with few regrets, but also a feeling of contentment and the wisdom to face death with a sense of equanimity and completion.

 

August 2021

 

April 2021

 

January 2020

  • The COE Of Korn Ferry argued that being authentic is the only way to bridge the barriers caused by the pandemic - physical distance, emotional separation, social divides, and even Zoom calls. We must show who we truly are, what motivates us, and what we believe about the future. None of us can gaze at our reflection and self-proclaim, “I’m so authentic.” It doesn’t work that way. Authenticity needs to be experienced by others in dialogue and relationships. As David Dotlich, Ph.D., a CEO and board advisor and a senior leader at Korn Ferry, observed, that means leading not only with our heads - ideas, strategies, and analytics - but more important from our hearts and our guts, with empathy and courage. 

 

December 2019

 

August 2019

  • "Cultural" authenticity is believed by many to have a very exclusive, dark side, Cultural purity and authenticity are, in reality, imaginary yardsticks that we use to evaluate insiders and outsiders. They are entirely artificial measurements and things, peoples, and practices slip across those “boundaries”, and change in the process. Folklorist Regina Bendix is very clear about ways in which cultural authenticity itself is a problematic and sometimes unhelpful concept: "Removing authenticity and its allied vocabulary is one useful step toward conceptualising the study of culture in the age of transculturation."

 

July 2019

  • People want to feel authentic at work. If an employee or candidate cares about the environment or access to education or being a caring parent, for example, they don’t want their professional responsibilities to interfere with these values or force them to compromise on them. They want to feel like they can express who they are fully at work, without being judged negatively or missing out on development and advancement opportunities; that, for the Harvard Business Review, is the idea of enabling people to bring their “whole selves” to work.

 

June 2019

  • Quartz believes that authenticity is what influencers are supposed to lend the brands they promote on Instagram and other platforms. Marketers value their content as more honest and grounded than traditional advertising. Influencers say their sponsored posts are authentic because they genuinely like and use the products they promote. But those posts are also intentionally meant to blend in with their organic content. For consumers, this can raise questions. When am I being advertised to? Is this ad copy, or someone’s real opinion? But this central tenet of the influencer economy is also the fulcrum of most of its problems. Governments are trying to mandate this authenticity and regulate the sector, but it’s been slow going. The amount of content is massive, and the legal lines are vague. 
  • The Outline criticised the middle class trend for mending and making do, arguing that there is something disturbing about the impulse to buy artificial austerity at a markup. There is a bored  spirit that has become exhausted by the world it owns: its resources, its pleasures, its elegances and civilities. Its entitlement is so complete that its only remaining move is to bowdlerise and deconstruct.

 

July-August-September 2018

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