Porcelain Philosophy 9: Reputation

my reputation precedes me. in a Chinese church, this is a potentially volatile matter.

a casual conversation with an adult that i have not spoken directly to more than 4 times, and certainly not in recent memory, yielded the fact that it was known i was in teachers college; nevermind that the query was initially directed to my brother with whom i am still mistaken for (even by his driving instructor!), and vice versa. there are people i've spoken more frequently to in the fellowships i held and hold membership to who did not know until they asked me where i've been working.

naturally, i am curious as to what the rest of my reputation says about my character. i have a fairly good idea of who i am, but mostly because i spend all my time with myself. after awhile, you pick up on a few things. what i'm more interested in is what others, who only spend finite amounts of time with me under specific environmental and social situations, see. indulge my curiosity in the comments if you so desire.

an aspiring professional ought to comport himself as a professional. is this reflected in my speech and actions?

i'm pretty sure most would say "not really": case in point, the comment above about how people i interact with who have no idea what i am doing after graduation (or what i did to achieve graduation for that matter). that's not to say that i am pouting that some people don't pay attention to me, or that they don't bother to remember what i tell them; it's more like my parents' reaction to when i told them i was aiming to be a teacher: "really?" never would have guessed it.

therein lies my beef with reputation. everyone is, at any given moment, a "work in progress"; everyone is judged by instances. in more confusing terms: the derivative of their action function. plot a graph of action (positive: good, negative: bad) vs. time and most people will have a fairly squiggly line, like a temperature vs. time graph of a home with central heating and a thermostat. we really only notice another person's actions when the magnitude of the derivative of his or her action function is high (i.e. does something exceptionally good, or does something exceptionally bad). the recency effect puts a very high stock on this single event, biasing our perception of that person's reputation. when judging others, we have the remarkable ability to set them against standards that we ourselves fall short of more often than not.

the Chinese culture is honour based. above all else, you must "save face." lie, cheat, steal, extort, bribe, blackmail, murder -- whatever it takes to ensure that your family is not disgraced in public (nevermind that most of those methods will generally lead to further disgrace). throw in the complicated church dynamic and the proclivity of people to draw their own conclusions and share them, and you have a very, very narrow margin for error. for more extra fun, post your personal thoughts about everything online.