Cindy Sherman, Clockwise from Upper Left: Untitled Film Still #58, 1978; Untitled Film Still #45,1979; Untitled Film Still #17, 1978; Untitled Film Still #21, 1978

In Western society authenticity is held at a premium. After apple pie, there’s nothing more American than the kind of rugged individualism that brazenly rejects the highfalutin manners of European aristocracy. American Authenticity shoots from the hip and tells it like it is, all the while reverently polishing up its contrarian opinions until it can see itself reflected perfectly back in them. If you don’t like what I have to say, then get the hell outta my office! 

One benefit to consecrating and paying obeisance to our unique and wonderful selves is that it reminds us of who we’re not, namely all those other people; you know the ones, with the shaggy hair and the shuffling gait, the scent of whose cooking you can just never seem to get out of the drapes. On the other hand, the challenge to developing and maintaining our own authentic personal brand is that it’s all kind of arbitrary because, after all, we really aren’t anybody in particular. As the decades pass, the implausible project of recalling the through-line of our lives becomes more and more difficult. Looking back at old photo albums it can be hard to know what it’s supposed to mean to have been all the people we apparently were over the years. And then there’s the haunting suspicion that the authentic self we thought we were is in fact just the leading edge of a cultural indoctrination campaign; come to think of it we don’t even like lacrosse and can’t for the life of us remember why we decorated our car’s headlights with eyelashes. 

Buddhism rather cryptically describes one of the characteristics of existing as “No Self”; an appraisal that usually elicits either contemptuous fury or an eyeroll. Fury because who wouldn’t be pissed off to find out they bought a lot of expensive gear only to discover the campsite fell into a sinkhole? The eyeroll because, while “No Self” may ring true on some level, we still have four hundred payments left on it if interest rates don’t go up in the new year. Nevertheless, “No Self” is one of the cornerstones of Buddhism philosophy, so we could at least consider it. It seems that where we initially get tripped up by this teaching is in the misapprehension that “No Self” means that our body-mind-complex has no characteristics, when the opposite is clearly the case. In rudimentary terms, this teaching suggests that it is totally possible to have chosen an unflattering hair color at the salon, be an expert in Yoruba masks, and love the song stylings of Miss Anita O’Day…without mistaking the specifics as being admissible evidence of unchanging personhood. After all, most of what we take to be confirmation of a self is what we recall having just transpired or what we think might occur next. Meanwhile, if we look closely, nothing much seems to actually be taking place “right now.”

The artist Cindy Sherman made a name for herself by crafting “no self” portraits, you might say. Her Film Still series are intricately staged moments from non-existent movies in which she plays all manner of heroine. She describes these enigmatic images as depicting a moment caught between something that has just happened and something that has yet to happen. By zeroing in on this fecund gap, Cindy Sherman demonstrates that rather than collapsing into it like an abyss, we might actually discover a wealth of possibilities. Or put another way, when we are unencumbered by the millstone of a fixed self we are actually at liberty to explore myriad selves. We are allowed to play. In her fifty-year career, Sherman has relished creating countless characters through with wigs, nose putty, and kooky thrift store finds. Losing her “self” in these fabricated personae, Sherman has in turn discovered something authentic in herself; a deep and indestructible compassion for others. As my teacher Sokuzan often says, who we truly are cannot be destroyed because it never come into being. If that’s the case, then maybe we all have permission to drag the old dress-up trunk out of the attic. By allowing ourselves to rummage through the costume jewelry we may actually discover a diamond.