Root and fracture

“Authenticity is learning to bend without breaking.”

The olive tree teaches a truth we forget: authenticity is not about what is straight, but about what knows how to branch out without breaking. Like its branches, we live amidst contradictions and adaptations. We are not one: we are multitudes on the same trunk.

An olive tree never grows straight. The trunk is born strong, but soon it opens up, it forks. Two, three, a thousand branches.

All different, all the same.

That's how we are too: root and fracture. Life forces us to branch out, to invent versions that adapt to the terrain, the wind, the drought. It's not falsehood: it's survival.

Whitman said it with brutal clarity: “I contain multitudes.” Bowie sang it with every new skin. The graffiti-covered walls of cities shout it anonymously. And yet, we continue to believe that being authentic means always being the same. As if genuineness were rigid, not alive. Isn't authenticity also about learning to bend, to branch out, to reinvent oneself without breaking?

The olive tree teaches that strength lies in contradiction. That beauty lies not in straightness, but in twisting.

Adapting means persisting, not betraying oneself. Culture is full of olive trees disguised as humans.

Creators, artists, poets, musicians who have made bifurcation an art. They didn't hide their branches. They displayed them as part of the trunk.

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If you recognize yourself in this multiplicity, here is a map of those who have walked this path before:

Philosophers and writers

• Walt Whitman, in Leaves of Grass (1855). The line, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. (I am broad, I contain multitudes.)” is a manifesto of human multiplicity. Read more about Whitman here.

• Hervé Le Tellier in The Anomaly (2020). A novel where the same plane arrives twice at an airport, with duplicate passengers, if you want to discover what would happen if a literal bifurcation of identities occurred.

• Byung-Chul Han states in Psychopolitics (2014) that today subjectivity becomes flexible and adapts plastically to fit into the digital system of control and self-exploitation.

• In Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85), Nietzsche discovers that the figure of the Übermensch implies accepting contradictions and excess as a vital force. “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”

• Octavio Paz in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) explains and geolocates how Mexican identity is made of masks: “The Mexican appears to me as a being who shuts himself away and preserves himself: he masks his face and masks his smile.”

Visual/urban artists

• Jean-Michel Basquiat in his first exhibition Untitled (1981) represents chaotic layers of words, symbols and faces; each canvas is a multitude that coexist on the same surface.

• Banksy, with his adaptive irony, changes his skin depending on the context but maintains his critical core. Girl with Balloon (2002). A simple image that mutates in meaning depending on the context: hope, loss, adaptation. It even self-destructed at auction, reinventing itself as a new work.

• JR, photographer and graffiti artist, in Inside Out Project (2011) presents black and white portraits pasted on walls around the world. Anonymous faces that together form a multiple collective identity.

• In Great Grey Painting (1955), Antoni Tàpies used humble materials and rough textures that reveal fractures, cracks, and bifurcations within the material itself. Pure equilibrium based on imbalance.

Music

• David Bowie invented Ziggy Stardust on his 1972 album, an alien alter ego that allowed him to branch out his artistic identity, opening the door to endless reinventions, and containing one of the most iconic guitar solos in history.

• Residente (Calle 13), in his song "René" (2020), offers an intimate and vulnerable confession that contrasts with his combative side. It shows the two branches of the same tree.

• Björk → Biophilia (2011). A project that combines music, science and nature, where each song explores a different vital mutation.

• Rosalía → El mal querer (2018). An album that takes its root in a medieval text and branches out into flamenco, pop, trap and electronic music.

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They too twisted, branched out, reinvented themselves. They too were ONE OF ONE.

Sources

Google Veo 3. (2025). Olive. Updated version of the Veo 3 model. Retrieved from https://aistudio.google.com/models/veo-3

Whitman, Walt. (c. 1860s). “Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a cosmos.” Photography by Mathew Brady. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Bowie, David. (1970). The Man Who Sold the World. Cover made by Keith MacMillan. Philips Records.

Paz, Octavio. (1984). Peace Zone. Photograph taken by Rafael Doniz.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1875). Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche. Royalty-free image.

Basquiat, Jean-Michel. (n.d.). Photograph courtesy of VisitLondon.com.

Banksy. (c. 2000s). Girl with Balloon. Street art in Shoreditch, London.

Björk. (sf). Portrait of Björk. Photography by Frédéric Vicomte. Björk Orkestral, Paris.