The Urge to be Authentic (vs societal consequence)

My RSS reader this morning contained a wonderful post that touched me with it’s authenticity. In a moment I felt connected to this person merely from the words he typed. An odd thing happened through when I clicked on the link in my RSS reader to post a comment. The page was no longer there. Curiously, I checked out the front page of the blog to see the post was not on the front page either

*sighs*

This page was removed because this person was afraid to express the authentic self he had accepted in a moment. The post contained a proclamation of thoughts, feelings, and impulses that may not be societally accepted. These are scary things to talk about sometimes. I mean what happens when we expose these possibly unacceptable aspects of ourselves to others?

The answer to me is frequently unknown. I say this because I find it impossible to distinguish projections of my own fears to that of actual consequences. I’m actually uncertain as to weather it’s society that limits my expression or if it’s my own fears.

I’ve got no answer and I’ve spent too much time thinking about this. I’ve decided to simply keep increasing the channels in which I can express myself regardless of consequence. I’m thinking the key is baby steps. If I happen to cross some boundary I’m unaware of then there should be someone there to smack me back in place. I can live with this.

Now this is working for me at the moment, however I still have much sympathy for those that haven’t found a way. Authenticity is an expression of our actual self. When we are authentic, we are most true to ourself. How can we expect to grow if we are not authentic?