Authenticity in life and tea--a thread.

Earlier this week I went down a rabbit hole after watching this video from William @ Farmer Leaf Tea.

His question: what does it mean to be authentic as a tea business? Is "be yourself" bullshit business advice?

To expand my ability to answer this question, I looked into philosophical thought on the subject of authenticity.

I learned authenticity is:

1. Being true to oneself
2. Taking responsibility for making oneself

There's an important distinction between these two points.

First, in order for us to be true to ourselves, we first must know what we value. Then, we must act according to our values and without worry or concern for reprisals or judgement from others.

Shakespeare: "To thine own self be true." (Hamlet)

This is a big challenge for us because living in a society creates pressure to conform--to social norms, to others' expectations, and so on.

Rousseau, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche all railed against this conformity.

More on this in a bit.

Second, we are responsible for making ourselves into who we want to be.

Nietzsche said each of us must get in touch with our "inner genius" and deepest passions, then submit to the discipline required to become our best selves.

Not only do we have a responsibility to author ourselves, but we are always at risk of slipping back into an "irresponsible anonymity/passivity".

This passivity poses an existential threat to the authentic individual.

So the truly authentic person acts according to their values regardless of what others think and they take responsibility for doing so consistently, without falling into passivity or conformity.

That said, we do live in a society and there are real constraints placed on as a result of our social status and relationships to one another.

What does the authentic person do? Retreat from society to live as an ascetic in solitude?

In life, we are parents, friends, siblings, lovers, and colleagues.

There are also legitimate challenges of the sort women and minority groups or people born in disadvantaged circumstances face.

We cannot simply cast this reality aside.

To me, the best way to maintain authenticity in spite of our life constraints is to be aware of what they are and choose how we allocate our time to them.

In choosing what we do/don't or can/can't do and taking responsibility for that we are true to ourselves.

But we have to be careful here because acknowledging constraints can be a slippery slope into a place where we convince ourselves we are not free, and in so doing make it true.

The victim mindset is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What does this mean for tea businesses?

Is "be yourself" in business bullshit advice like William suggests?

I say no. Here's why per 2 points above:

1. Know what you do and why as a tea business
2. Take responsibility for creating the business you desire to be

If your mission is to bring a "true" expression of tea to the world, then anything you do not in service of that is inauthentic.

If your desire is to be a business that lives its values, then anything you do not in service of that is inauthentic.

A key point here is knowing what you're NOT in order to act according to what you ARE.

Then you choose to a) consciously act in a way that expresses what you are and b) take responsibility for doing that every day.

Examples of authentic tea businesses like these:

@white2tea - the tea tells you if it's good or not so just drink it and you'll see
@YunomiTea - craft/artisanal tea makers are the heart of Japanese tea
@TheTeaCrane - let tea express its own being according to its nature

You may have noticed by now I haven't discussed authenticity as it pertains to tea itself.

Well, we'll get to that in future additions to this thread.

In the meantime, if you enjoyed this thread/want more like it, hop on my email list here: https://sendfox.com/thetealetter