Reputation and Freedom

Can you protect your reputation without caring about it?

“Reputation would not be worth worrying about, were it not so useful”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

In physics, the refractive index of a medium such as air or water is the measure of how much it causes light to deviate from its path when it enters the medium.

Something similar to a refractive index describes how Truth is altered as it passes through a person’s mind. A statement cannot simply be received, it must be interpreted. Each one is worked into the format, “so what they’re saying is…”

People want to know that you’re safe, useful, and on their side.

They will not care for anything you do that does not satisfy these requirements.

For your own part, you cannot perceive the world and its events directly. They come to you through the prism of your nature. You do not enjoy Paris. You enjoy yourself in Paris.

This is precisely why who you are is far more important than what you have. It is a tragic comedy in that people are willing to sacrifice their state of mind in order to attain external benefits that can only make themselves known as a state of mind.

The Presentation of the Self

Suppose you have a craft you want to master, as the fullest expression of who you are.

Artist, doctor, businessman, whatever. You probably need to collaborate with other people. And for that, you need to create an image. One that takes account of the refractive index of your collaborators’ minds. You use persuasion. You don’t present the essential truth of your pursuit, you present a picture of competency.

Now you have a source of anxiety. Perhaps you lied. What if you’re leading people on a wild goose chase, wasting their time and money? You remind yourself that your inner freedom remains paramount, whatever events occur.

But isn’t it disingenuous to build an image to serve your pursuit, only to discard it when events don’t go your way? Isn’t the later discarding of the image based on an ulterior motive — to get rid of the feeling of guilt —which the mind recognizes?

The nature of the action is found in the source.

It is about what is furthest upstream.

If it is totally unacceptable for a person to live without inner freedom, they will have it. Because anything that threatens that freedom will provoke an allergic reaction. Anything that masquerades as freedom, they will despise. They will want to know the truth, the essence of all situations.

Along the way, they may project an image. But the image will be a means to an end. It will be done in the same way that a surfer adjusts her weight to the speed of the wave.

“Masks are arrested expressions and admirable echoes of feeling, at once faithful, discreet, and superlative. Living things in contact with the air must acquire a cuticle, and it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts; yet some philosophers seem to be angry with images for not being things, and with words for not being feelings.

Words and images are like shells, no less integral parts of nature than are the substances they cover, but better addressed to the eye and more open to observation.”

— George Santayana