who will genuinely be

Reading 1Sam9 and it always surprises me to see what Saul used to be like. In v5, Saul is worried about potentially causing his father to worry about him being gone too long. In v7, he's concerned with not having a visitor's gift for Samuel. In v21, after being treated kindly by Samuel, Saul wonders aloud whether Samuel has the wrong guy since his lineage isn't the greatest.

There is such a lack of guile and arrogance and bloodthirst in the young Saul that we barely recognize him as the same man who chases David all over the map later on and makes bad choices as a king. Dealing right now with a family member who continues to make bad choices and in his moments of clarity when he seems like a purer version of himself, the contrast to the worse version is just as striking.

Which is the real? The one that makes bad choices, true nature revealed, or the one we long it to be, the one with less ill?