Accurate Reputations

What does it mean to have a reputation?  Are you a reputable person?  Do you have a reputation to protect at all costs or a reputation you wish to hide from someone?  Who owns your reputation?  Has your reputation changed over time?

Reputations of people and places

Reputations are difficult to protect.  How something or someone is perceived by others is a social and cultural phenomenon.  How do you perceive the person you talked to most recently?  Have you asked that person what they think of you? 

Knowing Your Business

To identify the essence of a successful business is quite easy.  Many people fail in business because they focus on doing what they enjoy.  They believe that by doing what they love, they will be successful.  Unfortunately, this is not what customers what.  They want what they love, not what the business owner loves.

The key to a good business is to enjoy helping others to obtain what they enjoy and love, as long as the desired enjoyment is not at the expense of others, or the environment.  Once people know themselves better, and what they enjoy, they are likely to seek that enjoyment where it is most likely to be found.

Contrasting Views on Identity

Sometimes, justice is served when the identity of someone is revealed and shared.  Sometimes it is not.  I do not need to search for friends or family members through "social networks" or to reveal much about myself to strangers and vague acquaintances.

In my family history explorations, "long lost" relatives are able to make connections with me after reading my blog posts of relevance to their own explorations of the past.  I prefer being in touch by email.

But why do people reveal private information about themselves to strangers?  Why would anyone reveal any real facts about themselves in an online forum?  Why would anyone believe something written on a screen unless there is some way of verifying the authenticity of the information?

Funny Names For Places

Some places have funny names, at least if they are funny in your language.

Improving Reality

If you work in the hope of improving some aspect of reality, are you sure that you are experiencing reality yourself?

Do you sometimes have inappropriate thoughts or behave in a socially unpleasant manner?

Do you sometimes think the world around you is unreal?

How real are you?

How well do you treat others?

It important for everyone to know something about derealization, depersonalization, and dehumanization.  Without the ability to distinguish between reality, unreality, pleasantness and unpleasantness, how is it possible to improve reality?