Los Angeles, California ~
Reputation is what other people think about you, honor is what you know
about yourself. Friction begins to arise when the two are not the same.
The first time your reputation takes serious damage you will be hurt
and confused which will probably emerge as a sort of awkward,
self-conscious rage but remember that you have many alternatives. Do
not let tunnel vision force you down a blind alley of reaction.
Hopefully the first time it does take damage you’ll either be smarter
than I or you will have the luck of fools and madmen. Certainly I was
both. I didn’t give a damn. Vile gossip? I would prove it an
understatement, and give them twice the tale to chew upon. I think I
stunned them into silence. Picture a suicidal loon with nothing to
lose, staggering around in a drunken, hostile haze. Armed. Eventually I
got as sick if myself as everyone else must have been of me by that
time and pulled myself out of it.
There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered
at your feet while soaring public opinion wraps you in rewards. That
soul destroying, reputation damage is merely very very irritating. Only
acts of will count in the honor arena, acts of ineptitude are a gray
area and thoughts not acted upon do not count.
For those of us who try to have honor within ourselves, our more
immediate problems lie in the realm of reputation. Not that we don’t
leap up into the blinding light of competence now and then. It’s
sustaining the altitude that defeats us.
Consoling Reflections:
First: No matter what the situation is (even if others think you’ve
committed of murder), this too shall pass. Despite the undoubted charms
of sex, murder, conspiracy, and more sex, people will eventually grow
bored with the tale, and some other poor fellow will make some other
ghastly public mistake, and their attention will go haring off after
the new game.
Second: Given this accusation, no charge against you that is less
exciting will ruffle anyone’s sensibilities in the future. The near
future anyway.
Third: There is no mind control or we would have put it to use before
now. Trying to shape or respond to what every idiot on the street
believes, on the basis of little logic and less information, would only
serve to drive you mad. Some people's opinions do matter, usually
either loved ones or ones who have earned your respect. Those have to
be determined on a case by case basis.
Fourth: In this venue, acquiring a reputation as a slick and dangerous
man, who will kill without compunction to obtain and protect his own,
is not all bad. In fact you might even find it useful. More than likely
you will find it a mixed damnation. You’ll find you can use the weight
of that reputation, from time to time, to lean on certain susceptible
persons. You will have to pay for that reputation in some ways but with
it sometimes you will find that to unnerve your opponents, all you’ll
have to do is stand there and keep your mouth shut.
Honor is born from within us and is always there if we work to keep it
whereas reputation always costs something but can be valuable
sometimes.
Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive
the bastards who plot against you.