Well, John’s gonna kill me for this one.
This topic is decidedly his thing. The term “authentic swing” is taken from The Legend of Bagger Vance, a Steven Pressfield novel that John begged me to read and that I still haven’t finished (fyi: for those of you who are new to the “Think Tank” series, it consists largely of ideas I’ve gotten from books that I’ve never finished).
I did read past the “authentic swing” part of Bagger Vance, though, which makes me feel like something of an authority on the subject, so here goes.
The Legend of Bagger Vance is about golf, and the ‘authentic swing’ refers to a golfer’s first swing, where they rely entirely on intuition, play the game in the exact way that they are supposed to. Some people might call this ‘beginner’s luck’ and generally, if you’re naturally good at something, it will work pretty well for you.
What happens afterwards is that they start thinking about it. They start trying to replicate what they did the first time and inevitably fall short. They study proper form, find out how the pros play the game.
Here’s the kicker, though—after all this practicing and studying, if the golfer wants to truly be great, his main objective in all this study and imitation is to break free of it, to find his ‘authentic swing’ again and play the game in the way that only he knows how. This is mastery.
It can also be applied to basically anything.
This seems fairly straightforward when it comes to creating art or playing a sport or any other skill where you practice until you reach a point when you can dare to call yourself ‘good.’ However, we can basically consider everything a skill, can’t we? Motivation, socialization, relaxation—even happiness can be looked at as a skill that we can hone. And while we may have natural talents for some and not others, we can improve them all.
Is life itself a skill?
If so, then our first stab at it, our ‘authentic swing’ was our childhood. No matter how brief, there was a point in our childhood where we were living exactly the way we were supposed to live.
Of course, then our cat died or we were bullied for the first time or we found out that it’s actually pretty hard to become an astronaut. We learned that when we behaved in certain ways, people responded favorably, and we started altering our behaviors to seek that response. It’s only natural! We’re social creatures, and human social life (during adolescence in particular) is centered around acceptance and belonging.
People lose themselves this way, though. In pleasing others, we forget who we are, and we have to re-learn it as adults.
Artists are fairly good at this. They have to be—it’s the only way to create. I’m reminded of the famous Pablo Picasso quote:
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
The answer, of course, is that you have to remain the same person you were as a child. You have to remain authentic, uninhibited. You have to ‘be yourself.’
Whenever I write something like this exploring the ‘human condition’ or whatever, I find myself ending up at some benign platitude such as this.
“Be yourself.” It’s fantastic advice! It’s such good advice that we’ve brushed it off with an eye-roll multiple times during our lives from about the age of ten onwards. We ignore this advice, and then we end up in a job we don’t like, a circle of friends that bores us, a list of hobbies that we’ve curated because we’re ‘supposed’ to like them, and this strange feeling of anxiety that seems to come from nowhere but which really comes from the fact that we are spending every waking moment of our lives putting on an act.
I realize I’m preaching to the choir here on Substack. Most of us have, to some extent, figured this out, shed the fake persona, become who we want to be. It bears repeating, though. We tack on fake personas by the day.
What are you holding onto that isn’t authentic? Can you find your authentic swing?
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If generosity is your ‘authentic swing,’ you can even buy me a coffee.
Great post. I forgive you for stealing my thunder….
Perfectly said! Loved this part - “Be yourself.” It’s fantastic advice! It’s such good advice that we’ve brushed it off with an eye-roll multiple times during our lives from about the age of ten onwards. We ignore this advice, and then we end up in a job we don’t like, a circle of friends that bores us, a list of hobbies that we’ve curated because we’re ‘supposed’ to like them, and this strange feeling of anxiety that seems to come from nowhere but which really comes from the fact that we are spending every waking moment of our lives putting on an act.