The Authentic Self is the self you become when you live honestly.
This is the self you should be. You become who you should be when you stop performing and choose to live honestly from who you are responsible for becoming.
Your becoming your Authentic Self is part of personal morality and this is the common floor for exploring identity under responsibility. It helps you ask who you are when you stop performing for approval, hiding behind roles, or living from borrowed scripts. The goal is not selfishness or self-invention without limits. It is honest becoming. You become more fully yourself by living with truth, responsibility, and honor.
In TST, Authentic Self is also a hook into existential thought and the bridge from Daoism to existentialism. You do not have to accept every existential or Daoist claim to learn from the traditions. The shared floor is practical: stop performing what is false, stop hiding from responsibility, and stop letting other people write the whole script for your life. To live authentically is to become yourself on purpose.
In existential thought, authenticity means facing the freedom and responsibility of being a self. You are not just a role, label, job, mood, tribe, or social expectation. You are a person who must choose, act, and become. The Authentic Self is not a perfect hidden object waiting to be found. It is the self you build by making honest choices under real conditions.
The Authentic Self connection to Daoist Natural Alignment is the reality-centered view: live in rhythm with nature, timing, simplicity, and the unforced shape of things. Authentic Self is the existential view: live honestly from who you are responsible for becoming. Together, they help you stop forcing life from the outside and start living from the inside.