There seems to be a correlation between happiness and autonomy. Folks enjoying high autonomy seem to spend their time enthralled by things they love, which explains some of the success of my favourite content creators. Lex Fridman is a great podcast host precisely because he asks the questions he wants to ask. He exercises his autonomy when choosing the direction of a conversation. He exercises his autonomy by speaking to guests he chooses and by wearing the same damn black suit every episode.

Substitute autonomy with authenticity and the paragraph stands.

I think autonomy enables authenticity. Authenticity has the power to generate autonomy as well.