Between Rage and Reflection: The Fight for Authenticity
- Prathamesh Kulkarni
- Mar 29
- 4 min read
I find myself angrier these days. There’s a constant rant running in my head. And it’s not directed at any one person, it’s just… there. A simmering frustration. A quiet rage. Like a fire that never fully goes out, just smolders beneath the surface.
I don’t lash out. I don’t snap at people. I don’t let my bitterness spill into my interactions. But I feel it. It sits in my chest, coiled and waiting. For what? I don’t know. But I do know that if I ignore it, if I keep swallowing it down, it will consume me from the inside out.
Maybe this is what happens when you live a life that isn’t fully yours. When you spend years crafting an identity that is acceptable, likable, and valuable. When you work so hard at polishing the edges that you forget what the raw material underneath even looks like.
Because when I strip away the polish, what remains?
Calm.
Egoist.
Angry.
Disgusted.
Tasteful.
A jerk. Mean. Rude.
Empathetic.
Romantic.
Unhateful towards people and things.
Manipulative.
Chill.
Thoughtful.
Some say perfectionist.
Philosophical.
Raw and rough, especially with language.
It’s contradictory, I know. Being mean and rude right next to being empathetic? How does that work? But that’s the thing: People aren’t just one thing. We are layers. We are contradictions. We are the sum of everything we have been and everything we will be. And yet, for so long, I have been trying to be just one thing: Presentable. Marketable.
And I’m exhausted.
The Weight of Authenticity
What does it even mean to be authentic?
To say exactly what’s on your mind? To stop curating your reactions? To stop thinking about how your words will be perceived before you even speak them? To stop molding yourself to fit a room, a situation, a conversation?
I have spent years refining who I am. Smoothing out the rough edges, muting the sharper tones, making sure I am palatable to those around me. And for what? Approval? Acceptance? Some illusion of being understood?
But the truth is, the more you polish, the more you lose. The more you tailor yourself for others, the more you cut away from who you are. And at some point, you look in the mirror and realize you don’t recognize yourself anymore.
And I think that’s where the anger comes from. It’s not about other people. It’s not about the world. It’s about me. It’s about knowing, deep down, that I have betrayed myself in a thousand tiny ways. That I have compromised my voice to fit into spaces that were never meant for me. That I have diluted myself to be digestible.
And now I want to taste the full version. No filters. No adjustments. No rehearsals.
The Confrontation with Mortality
I watched my uncle have a heart attack.
Two days later, my grandmother died.
Back to back. Life and death with no pause in between. And suddenly, the theme of death wasn’t just an abstract concept anymore. It was real. It was tangible. It was there, standing in front of me, reminding me that everything, every single thing, will end.
And I couldn’t help but ask myself: If I died tomorrow, would I have lived the life I wanted? Or just the life that was expected of me?
I already knew the answer.
Because right now, I am disgusted with the way I’m living. The days pass in autopilot. The work gets done. The deadlines are met. The expectations are fulfilled. I perform the role I am supposed to play. I nod in the right places. I smile when I should. I participate in the grand illusion that this is what life is supposed to be.
But am I living? Or just existing?
The Cost of Existing
There’s a comfort in autopilot. A safety in routine. You wake up, you do what needs to be done, and you go to sleep knowing you’ve survived another day. But is survival enough? Is it enough to just keep breathing, keep functioning, keep moving through the motions?
There is another kind of suffering. The kind that comes from knowing you are capable of more but never reaching for it. The kind that comes from seeing glimpses of the life you could have but never stepping into it. The kind that comes from silencing yourself, dulling yourself, shrinking yourself to fit the spaces you were given instead of carving out the ones you need.
And that kind of suffering is worse. Because it’s silent. Because it doesn’t demand your attention the way pain does. Because it can stretch out over years, decades, an entire lifetime, without ever forcing you to confront it.
But I am confronting it now.
The Struggle to Live
So what does it mean to live?
I don’t have the answer. I wish I did. But I know it’s not this. I know it’s not spending my days suffocating under the weight of my expectations. I know it’s not constantly modifying myself to be more acceptable, more pleasing, more polished.
I know that if I keep going like this, I will wake up one day and realize that I have wasted my life being someone I never wanted to be.
And I refuse to let that happen.
So here I am. Peeling back the layers. Unlearning the habits of inauthenticity. Letting the raw edges show. Letting the contradictions exist. Letting myself be everything that I am, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it terrifies me.
Because I would rather be raw and real than polished and empty.