When I mention “Authenticity” and ”Transparency”, I am speaking of two different concepts, although they can overlap. These are my definitions of these words as they pertain to the discussion at hand.

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AUTHENTICITY – Being genuine and original in what you say and do. This pertains to your inner soul, and not your outward appearance, geographical location, or given name and physical identity. The thoughts and ideas being expressed would be your own, though they may have been influenced by others.

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TRANSPARENCY – Exposing yourself to the world and the world to yourself as it pertains to who you are physically. (Please note that I am not saying exposing yourself physically, though some do that.) I mean posting pictures of yourself, sharing your given name, and perhaps personal information about your location (like address) or other things. By transparency, I mean that you are comfortable with not hiding who you are in this world.

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Both of these categories can overlap, or they can be completely separated one from another. Most of us find ourselves somewhere in-between.

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Papa-pepper – Authentic, Transparent, or Both?

Personally, I do not mind being authentic. I will seriously share about many things. Am I completely authentic in all that I share? Yes... and no.

• AUTHENTIC? - YES - Whatever I do share I share with 100% genuine authenticity. If I’m doing it, I’m doing it all the way, and don’t want to plagiarize or steal someone else’s work. Now someone may have shared a similar story in a similar manner, but if I am even aware of it, I want to do it my way, and share my experiences and my thoughts on the matter. One good example of this would be when @kepo777 shared about growing his own Goji Berries before I covered them in my series, papa-peppers guide to plant propagation. Did I no longer have the freedom to share my story, or my thoughts on the matter, since he had already shared his experience? I think not. My Goji Berry adventure is still valid, and can still be shared. I even linked his story in mine, and told Ruben ahead of time that I was going to do it. Now if I had quoted him without giving him the credit, or used his images and not my own without asking him, I would definitely not be authentic in my post. Another good example would be @andre-ager posting about Purslane before I covered it in my THE EDIBLE OUTDOORS series. Based on his reply to my post, I can see that he understood my authenticity in my post, and did not feel that I had “taken” or “stolen” anything from him. In both of these cases, we are simply two humans enjoying the same things at the same time, who both wanted to share our own thoughts and experiences on the subject.

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I believe that it is best for us all to be honest and 100% authentic in what we post.

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• AUTHENTIC – NO? - On the other hand, just because I will be 100% in what I share, I will not share everything 100% of the time. There are personal and private sides of our lives as well. Certain things that I do or think have no necessity, in my opinion, to be shared. What my wife and I did, or didn’t do, last night is not for the world to know. In a place like steemit where there is such a freedom to share, I can, if I choose to do so, share the most intimate and detailed thoughts and experiences that I have, but there is no necessity to do so. None of us have to share anything that we are not comfortable with. If we choose not to share such things, nothing has been taken away from the authenticity of what we do share.

The authenticity that we all should strive for is not sharing every detail, all the time, about all that we do or think. It is to make sure that we are honest and original in what we do choose to share.

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The second “type” of authenticity mentioned is more of a transparency of the soul, which I do not believe is necessary. We can all be genuine without completely being an open book for all to read.

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TRANSPARENCY

As we consider transparency, as I’ve defined it, this is where things can get uncomfortable, like with “transparency of the soul”. Is there any reason for you to need to post an image of your face on steemit? No. There are other ways of verifying that you are real besides posting your image online for all to see. If you are not comfortable with your actual picture being posted online, then don’t do it. Technically, that is only what you look like right now and it is not who you truly are on the inside anyway. You can be genuine and authentic without letting us know what you look like. If something crazy happens, like the governments of the world outlawing steemit and rounding up all the people involved in this community, perhaps it would be good for your picture not to be posted all over steemit. (That’s just an example, please don’t run and hide… yet.)

What about your given name and geographical location? Are these necessary to share? Again, these are subjects within the realm of “transparency” as I’ve defined it that should not be considered to be necessary or vital. Many people would never post their physical address online. Perhaps in a private online purchase as the “shipping address”, but not on facebook or steemit. There is nothing wrong with that.

Also, there is nothing wrong with not wanting to share your full given name. I can be on a first name basis with you, since my actual name is Kevin, as I shared in my introduction post. However, if you call me “papa-pepper” or even “papa”, as many of you are beginning to, there is nothing wrong with that. You know to whom you are addressing the comment or reply and I know that you are speaking to me, the genuine, authentic individual inside the physical body commonly referred to as “Kevin.” If your name is Todd Smitherson, (sorry Todd), and you want to go by “cooltommy34”, then do it. Your username certainly does not need to be your given name, and not using your given name doesn’t take anything away from who you really are. Also, if you live in Texas, and would prefer that not to be common knowledge, then don’t share it. Much like with “transparency of the soul”, there is no need for you to share anything that you are not comfortable sharing.

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I think that the key to the success of steemit is authenticity. I saw the cheetahbot in action the other day and was amazed. @cheetah had simply replied to a post stating that it looked very similar to an article already released online on a different site. I checked the original article that was linked, and it was obviously just copied and pasted into a post for steemit. This quickly raised some red flags for @cheetah, and hopefully made the user posting the information think about authenticity.

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IF THAT USER WAS NOT THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF THAT ARTICLE, THEN THIS WAS A SERIOUS CASE OF PLAGIARISM.

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Actions like this, if it really was someone stealing someone else’s work and trying to make some money off it as if it were their own creation, is what will ruin steemit. There are so many working so hard to fight this type of dishonesty, and personally, I’m glad. As I shared in my YOUR REPUTATION post, hopefully representing yourself instead of just being a representative of the steemit community will make things a little more personal for people who are being tempted to steal the work of others.

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I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT ONE CAN TRULY BE GENUINE OR AUTHENTIC IN THEIR POST IF THEY ARE STEALING THE WORK OF OTHERS.

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Personally, I think that I have become much more transparent than I had originally intended. As I have taken those steps forward, I have become more comfortable in taking the next step. This pertains to both physical transparency and transparency of the soul. My proof I’m not a bot post was when I first started sharing current pictures of myself on steemit. Now I do it on almost every post.

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CONCLUSION

As you continue to move forward with steemit, I would like you to look within and make sure that you know what you are comfortable with. Only share what you desire, but share from within, and not from someone else’s work. Don’t overexpose yourself either physically or personally or emotionally. If you have deemed something as private information, keep it private.

All of us change through life. I’m been about as wicked and as good as any man could be, but our past actions shouldn’t always identify us. If you’ve made some mistakes that others haven’t forgiven you for, you don’t need to share them with us so that we could choose to make a judgment call against you and dislike you too. We all deserve second chances, and perhaps steemit is yours.

Also, if, for some reason, you can’t share anything authentically, (though I’m not sure how that would be possible), there is nothing wrong with just being a spectator on steemit and enjoying what others have to offer.

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I was reflecting upon this concept the other day when I stopped in at an old man's house. I had stopped in and talked to him for a bit when we first moved to Arkansas, and he allowed me to take some of his prickly pear cacti pads for propagation. This time, he gave me a pile of the fruits and a few more pads, and I gave him and his wife a small pile of Chinese Noodle Beans. We had a great time blessing one another and interacting. It reminded me of sending free seeds to @cryptoiskey and @jed78, and I was glad that who I am in person is also who I am online.

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proof-of-papa