Reputation & Revelation

” If I had two heads, one would have rolled away, outside the gate of Pier 5 on the day before the Fall of Saigon.” (my Sliding Doors/when it’s worst)

At times, on reflection, I wonder what would have become of me, of that other abandoned head – like our abandoned car – grafted on someone else’s body. Would I be riding a motorcycle, taking my time with those Round-About to shop for an affordable cup of coffee? Definitely I would be pondering “what-if” I could have left on the last chopper out.

We do have a capacity for imagination, for getting outside of ourselves, for empathy. In doing so, tone and tame down our self-delusion.

Live one’s life so as to have no regrets, revision or recrimination. From Marcus (Aurelius) to Montaigne, Chardin to Chaplin.

Of course we fell short (of our own expectations). Who doesn’t! (BTW, it’s the indisputable foundation and pre-supposition for redemption ” all men are fallen short of God’s KPI”. )

People are rated and run on their records, reputation and revised revelation.

We forget our past transgression in order to look ourselves in the mirror, then “self-talk” or self-congratulate. In sales, they even taught you: ” I like myself” X 1,000 to brace against rejection.

The first person I need to convince each day is myself: am I OK? can “we” get a move-on? what’s next! what is to be hoarded, salvaged, discarded and improved? Getting things done. Yelping yourself. The rating, the ranking, like your FICO scores, change from day to day.

If you’re energetic, restless and with above-average self-exhibition, the long-term chart shows high peaks and low valleys. If you’re an introvert, and a contemplating type (who often take the less traveled off-ramp), your path runs past fewer crises (risks and rewards well proportionated and measured).

We live and die (socially) by our reputation (others’ perception). Personal polling.

The other day, I went over my endorsement page and noted one of my colleagues, now deceased, said some nice things about me (should I keep it? delete it?) It touched me deeply. Online, you live forever, by your record, reputation painted by feedbacks from people dead or alive.

It’s both scary and privileged. Since when could our entire population afford to live in a glass house! Every key-stroke, every utterance, every text is to be stored/retrieved and shown as evidence of your attempt, aspiration or missteps (in the 60’s, they have to hire people to listen in the “Conversation”).

I have always loved lighthouses. It’s one of the best icons. positioned on high ground, brightly lit and spins around 360 degrees. It warns seafarers and sojourners not to proceed too close. Danger signal: Don’t live as I do … sort of legacy-campaign. At least, we exist to be of use.

In the end, we are all like Columbus, throwing up sea waters, exploring and exploiting nearest environment for own gain. Along the way, we hid from ourselves from evidence of yesterday’s shame: people who hurt us, people who we in turn hurt back, not by nature, but out of self-preservation. Like a Thomas Wolfe’s line ” each of us is all the sums he has not counted..” Look homeward, Angel. (Do visit the village of Ba Tri near the Southern tip of Vietnam, where mass-skulls museum is still open).

As human, we need a healthy self-image – self-edited version of our little and short history; all the while, we preserve and perpetuate selective memory. It’s a dilemma and a drama trying to balance the yin and the yang, the moody inner self interacting with fluctuating social. Our record, reputation and self-revelation are all there. People (and programmatic ads) know us better than we do ourselves (I viewed a Hollywood page, only to be so informed about dead actors.

It’s like white-washing our personal history, our Holocaust and Hiroshima, Watergate and Lewinsky-gate, Y2K and J6 and George Floyd. It’s all there on Alphabet (who is better known as Google) and other search engine.

Forget not who we were and still could be. Often times, on reflections, I wonder what would become of me, the other head that rolled. Would I still be riding an old scooter, wearing a helmet, and a poncho, circling those Colonial French Roundabouts, in search of God-knows-what just to finish out my “shift”.

To completely “delete” someone, you would have to wipe clean his/her paper trail, digital record, dental record, EMR, court filing, tax filing, educational and social documents after dumping without exhuming the decomposed body (I happen to see “the talented Mr Ripley” and earlier French version played by Alain Delon) and even then, the best detective in Lawrence Block tradition can still follow those bread crumbs to reassemble and reconfigure what had actually transpired.

For the past 15 years, I have been toying with the Internet as an user. I just want to see where the distributed nodes take me. It’s been a wild ride without a single ticket (except to pay for Spectrum Internet). Endless and boundaryless. Fun and fearful. Educational and entertaining. To death.

Any ride would take you outside of your confine, lift you up high so you can see (and be seen, like lighthouses). In the end, with wishful thinking, I would love to retrieve that other head for proper burial, as I once read about that lost whale in the South China Sea. Like a Clint Eastwood line in Josey Wales, ” I guess we all died a little in that war”.

Then, I will be at peace, knowing my non-judgmental lost twin was finally found. I am OK, no I am OK. I like my (other) self. I like myself! You will only know what I chose to reveal, tip of the iceberg. The rest might be known to you and AI, but unbeknown to me. Then, there is unknown unknown, but we won’t get into that.

Beware of those who throw stones, if you lived in a glass house ( anti-social media). All this btw was triggered by a review of my professional endorsement, ironically, from a now deceased colleague. God rest her soul.