The Authentic Self

This is a topic that I've been wrestling with since I was in high school. We did a role-playing exercise in English Class, and I couldn't figure out how to role-play and not be phony.
It's really tough to be authentic when you're young ... you don't know who you are and you don't have enough power to take the chance of being rejected, and rejected because you are being yourself - you could starve to death.
So, hopefully with maturity, you can become more secure and self-knowledgable ... and thus trust being your self. Being your self means also loving your self - that's not narcsissm ... narcsissm is loving your reflection, not your self. That's why narcsissists are so concerned with what everybody thinks of them - their self-worth is dependant on other's perception of them ... so they become obssessed with how things appear, not as they really are.
I think narcsississm is basically immaturity.
And an immature society is obssessed with appearances ... that's why young and/or shallow people are obssessed with fashion, the latest look, tv, celebrities, etc ... sounds like the city of Los Angeles ...
Also, for immature people, other people are nothing more than things - he's a golfer, she's a waitress, he's an executive, etc ... not that he's who he is and plays golf - no, people are defined by surface roles in society ...
Ever watch terrible tv shows where the charecters are not developed into real people? but are just caricatures of people who are part of a sit-com format with formula jokes, etc ... not watchable ...
Also, when people are young/shallow/immature/narcsisistic ... they turn occasions into spectales instead of just what they were meant to be ... for example, these mothers having over-the-top birthday parties for kids ... it's obviously not about the kid - it's about how it all looks ...
The surest way to bad vibes is phonyness ... we can all smell it ...
To be authentic, trust your gut and don't worry about how people perceive it ... you'll like yourself and the people who get you are the only ones worth caring about anyway ...