I think that technically isn’t a real word, but genuineness sounds too cumbersome to me.  I’m going for the “quality of being genuine.”  Anyways, in conversation with a friend today I was reminded of one of my favorite principles and quotes:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”  (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves)

When we choose to be genuine, to let others see who we are, we choose to be vulnerable — vulnerable to pain, but also to love :)

I heard HWN today through a renewed desire to be genuine.

Comic credit: Zen Pencils