public interest

Do you have a public interest reason for being in this private, virtual library?

If not, whose interests are you serving, and why?

You may already know that I am The Author here.

What is your acquaintance with my investment notes?

What is your acquaintance with the educational notes I write, such as this one?

How do you distinguish between investments and education?

Perhaps you always regard education as an investment.

Perhaps you even regard all private activities obviously in the public interest to be investments in the public interest.

How do you tell when an investment is in the public interest?

How do you tell when an investment is not in the public interest at all?

I hope you regard my time in this virtual library to be in the public interest.

I hope you are also doing your best to improve your leadership, in the public interest.

Clarity about the public interest is important, in the public interest.

Indeed, clarity is important in relation to many important topics.

How do you assess the qualities of importance and clarity, and for what purpose(s)?

How much do you value clarity in relation to the public interest, and where is your evidence?

Why do you think you have been granted access to this private library, and by whom?

When, if ever, do you share important information with the ordinary public, in the public interest?

How do you know when non-fiction stories and other factual expressions are in the public interest?

How do you know when fictional stories and other non-factual expressions are in the public interest?

How do you feel when fact and fiction are intertwined to protect necessary privacy and address threats to the public interest?

How do you conduct research in the public interest, and where, and why?

The world is not being managed in the public interest. It has never been managed in the public interest.

How, if at all, have you been attempting to change that situation for the better?

The questions in my notes here are meant to improve the clarity of your mind, in the public interest.

How do you know when your private interests are in harmony with the public interest?

How do you know when your private interests are in conflict with the public interest?

How do you define the public interest and distinguish it from other interests?

Who are the public?

What is society?

What interests you, and why?

Perhaps you are not interested in the public, or society, or anything but your own interests.

Perhaps you do not care about the public, or society, or anyone but yourself.

Perhaps you are aware that 'care' is one of the most political words in the English language.

Perhaps you are not interested in politics.

But how do you respond when politics is expressed in conflict with the public interest, particularly if you are part of the relevant public?

How do you identify, and clarify, relevance in such circumstances?

How do you usually attempt to inform yourself about activities in the public interest, and about activities against the public interest?

What is your acquaintance with public interest journalism?

Where and how do you usually seek advice about improving your leadership, in the public interest?

Perhaps you feel too powerless to improve your leadership, or even to take a leadership role if you have never been in such a position before.

What do you believe it means to lead in the public interest?

Do you ever make public pronouncements of twitter or elsewhere on social media?

Have you ever attended a public protest or signed a public petition or sought legal advice?

Have you ever expressed an opinion through the mass media?

You are currently experiencing the virtual little library in the entirely ethereal Frugality Cottage. If you are not aware of this imaginative location, it is situated in the extraordinarily intangible Adelaidezone Digital Arts Quarter.

What do you know about artistic practices in the public interest?

Perhaps you are mainly interested in the topic of interest in terms of economics and finance.

Perhaps you usually associate investments with economics and finance, regardless of the public interest.

What do you know about morality, virtue and ethics in terms of conflicts of interest?

Perhaps most of your interests are in conflict with the public interest.

What do you know about the ethics of care, and how did you acquire that information?

Where do you usually seek advice about your moral duties?

What do you currently believe to be your duty of care, and why?

Perhaps you find such questions quite distressing to consider.

If so, why is that the case?

Please remember you are currently experiencing a virtual library.

How does your actual, non-digital location, at present, compare with this virtual experience?

I hope you will consider my questions carefully and respond to them with adequate civility.

You may or may not feel the need to do additional research at present.

What does self-interest mean to you in various contexts?

What does well-being mean to you?

What does pleasure mean to you?

What does happiness mean to you?

What does mental health mean to you?

How do you usually seek the truth when attempting to observe and understand the above concepts as phenomena?

This library is associated mainly with concepts and how they are expressed.

This is a private library. As a member of the ordinary public, your access here could be denied at any time.

What do you know about the private sphere and the public sphere in terms of the public interest?

What do you know about the concepts of copyright and public domain?

How do you usually assess intellectual property in terms of the public interest?

How do you usually assess private ownership, communal ownership and public ownership in terms of the public interest?

What do you own in tangible and intangible terms, and why?

What do you owe in tangible and intangible terms, and why?

What is your acquaintance with public assets?

There are obviously many important questions and concepts to consider and clarify, in the public interest.

Perhaps you regard public access to this private, virtual library as being in the public interest.

There is no public right of way associated with Frugality Cottage and its copyright grounds.

The cottage is merely a point of interest associated with subjective well-being.

Perhaps you are mainly here to experience storytime.

How do you usually think about privileges in terms of the public interest?

Clarity is especially important in relation to laws, rights and duties.

When clarity is absent, how do you locate the reasons for the associated obfuscation and obscurantism?

Another word for clarity is transparency, of course.

When something is unclear to you, and you want clarity, what do you usually do?

Perhaps you seek out further information, to ascertain the facts.

Perhaps you reflect upon the causes of your confusion.

Perhaps you reflect upon the emotions associated with your confusion.

How often has a style of language been the cause of your confusion?

How often has perceived emotion been the cause of your confusion?

How has illness or injury or medication or experiences of abuse, and possibly even self-medication, been the cause of your confusion?

What is your acquaintance with cognitive distortions?

What is your acquaintance with faulty reasoning?

What is your acquaintance with the politics of sociolinguistics?

How clearly do you distinguish between the perceived and the real?

How do you discern the public interest?

There are obviously many important questions to be answered by anyone with responsibilities in the public sphere with regards to planning, editing and the recording and/or interpretation of history and/or current events.

What, in your view, should be regarded as particularly important in relation to the public sphere and the public interest, and why?

How do you prefer to communicate your own responsibilities in that regard, and why?

What do you regard my responsibilities to be in relation to the public sphere and the public interest, and why?

What do you regard as everyone's responsibilities in relation to the public sphere and the public interest?

And what do you believe to be everyone's rights in that regard?

I hope you regard your time here as a good investment in itself.

My weekly investment notes to you are intended to transform you into a very good investor indeed, in the public interest.

20 - investing in reading

If you follow a particular lifestyle, why do you do so?

Perhaps you are the proprietor of a lifestyle business.

Perhaps you are the proprietor of a business promoting a particular lifestyle or system of beliefs.

Perhaps you regard yourself as following an alternative lifestyle to the type most usually regarded as mainstream in the neighbourhood in which you are currently situated, or in the society in which you spent most of your childhood and/or adolescence.

Or perhaps you regard the mainstream as normal and any differences as deviant.

But what is mainstream to one person is quite likely to be regarded as deviant, or at least odd or wrong or unhealthy, to someone with a different perception of normality, and morality.

To be able to make choices in life is an expression of freedom. It is not necessarily an expression of morality, or even reflective of good reasoning.

Acting in the public interest is meant to be an expression of morality and good reasoning.

21 - investing appropriately in good patronage

35 - investing in you

I hope you regard me as acting in the public interest here. I also hope you regard me as doing so in your best interests.

How do you usually ascertain your best interests?

I am not an Internet celebrity or any other type of celebrity. I am not attempting to sell anything to you, or anyone else. I am merely attempting to help you improve your leadership, as a gesture of my philanthropy towards you, in the public interest.

That, indeed, is an expression of my leadership.

If you prefer to take no notice of my notes, that is your choice.

I am not a lifestyle guru. I am not involved with any type of marketing. I have no influence whatsoever over public opinion.

My current writing style does not follow any style guides or fashionable language trends. I merely try to avoid jargon and idioms and colloquialisms and slang, in the public interest.

When expressing myself primarily artistically and/or politically and/or scientifically, that is another matter entirely.

My primary aim, always, is to be understood.

But what is understanding in terms of the public interest, and mental health?

What do you know about transparency and translucency in terms of optics?

What do you know about the physics of reflection?

What do you know about opacity?

What do you know about self-reflection as a practice in the public interest?

What do you know about reflective educational practices?

How carefully do you practice critical thinking in the public interest?

How carefully do you reflect upon culture, in the public interest?

How carefully do you assess transparency of behaviour in terms of the public interest?

As I am providing this note to you in a private online venue only briefly open to the ordinary public, my purpose is to improve your understanding of the public interest and therefore your enlightenment.

Although I am unwilling to interact in a more personal way with ordinary members of the public, especially ordinary tourists, I do employ a fictionalised moderator to assess your comments and questions in terms of the public interest.

Perhaps you are familiar with the necessary fictionalisations here in terms of protecting privacy, providing safety, enhancing security and supporting mental health.

All my expressions of fact and fiction here are in the public interest.

If you have any comments to make here, please ensure they are simultaneously relevant, courteous and authentic, in the public interest.

If you have any questions to ask here, please ensure they are in the public interest and you have adequately exhausted all other possible sources of relevant answers.

Wasting, or otherwise intruding upon, a person's time is always discourteous.

What do you know about courtesy in relation to the public interest?

What do you know about peacefulness and authenticity in relation to the public interest?

51 - investing in peacefully authentic living

As I have a reputation for being something of an expert on the subject of cultural suitability, particularly in terms of political suitability, I am hoping you are similarly accomplished.

You may have noticed that there is nothing particularly fashionable about Frugality Cottage, or about me.

Fashion is usually associated with style rather than substance. It is therefore associated with public superficiality rather than necessary leadership.

The volunteers here prefer to communicate in writing, as I do.

They do not communicate with the ordinary public directly, and nor do I.

The volunteers communicate with patrons.

I communicate with enlightened world leaders, such as yourself.

With whom do you prefer to communicate, and why?

Perhaps you have been in regular communication with the official guide here.

Perhaps you consider my anti-corruption practices to be rather quaint. I have never been compatible with corrupt persons, of course. No corruption is compatible with the public interest.

Perhaps you are somewhat corrupt rather than ethical and enlightened. If so, you will never be suitable as a patron here.

Perhaps that is why you have not yet initiated the necessary preliminary patronage gestures.

How am I to mentor you if you ignore the support and guidance I provide?

Perhaps you do not regard me as the personification of the public interest.

Perhaps you regard my image resolution to be somewhat blurred rather than clear enough for your purposes.

But what are your purposes?

How clear do you want the public interest to be, and why?

How clear is your public image and reputation, and why?

What are your perceptions of the public eye?

Perhaps you regard corruption as the evil eye.

When, if ever, is fame in the public interest?

What do you know about fiction in the public interest?

What am I to do if you continue to be so inattentive towards your responsibilities as an enlightened world leader?

Enlightened world leaders consistently act in the public interest.

Perhaps you often mistake human-interest stories for the public interest.

Unfortunately, that mistake is a societal ill in pandemic proportions.

Human-interest stories almost always intrude objectionably into people's private lives. The victims are usually unaware of that intrusiveness until subsequent problems arise in their lives.

All human-interest stories of considerable value, in the public interest, should be appropriately turned into works of fiction. That especially applies to the reporting of court cases and other sources of distress.

To intrude into the personal lives of distressed persons is likely to cause long-term harm to their mental health.

Where, then, is justice?

As in the case of the notes here, my straightforward communications, and other straightforward investments, are mainly for the benefit of persons with whom I am most likely to be compatible.

I have nothing to offer anyone else.

If you are seeking my attention for reasons other than the improvement of your leadership, I have nothing to offer you.

Perhaps you enjoy attracting attention to yourself with loudness and limelight.

Loudness is only ever permitted in Frugality Cottage when it stimulates alertness, not deafness or agitation.

The public interest is only served with public relevance is clearly discernible.

How relevant to you regard the public sector of the economy to be, whether in terms of public services, state-owned enterprises or public infrastructure?

When, if ever, have you assessed economic matters in terms of the public interest?

When, if ever, have you assessed political matters in terms of the public interest?

How do you discern whether a matter is economic and/or political?

What do you know about public finance in terms of the public interest?

If you have not visited this library at all, or not very often, before today, I have replaced each of my earliest notes to you, with briefer ones than I originally provided.

What do you know about succinctness in terms of the public interest?

What do you know about good policy in terms of the public interest?

What do you know about public policy in terms of the public interest?

How do you know when public policy is not good?

What do you know about public health and the provision of health care in terms of the public interest?

What do you know about public transport and public housing and public education and universal healthcare in terms of the public interest?

You have been reasonably attentive to the facts and ideas I have been expressing here today, as indicated by the fact that you are still reading these words.

Perhaps you usually think about the public interest in terms of the false dichotomy between the public and the private.

Dichotomies are often confused with clarity.

Appropriate accuracy and true clarity always take nuanced realities into consideration.

Reality is never found within the obvious or the seemingly obvious. It is located in the subtle and the sensitive.

The obvious is merely a platform upon which the truth happens to sit.

What do you believe I would appreciate most from you at present, and why?

Are you aware that I write these educational notes to you in the EverTime rather than in real time?

Since my public mission ended, managing my community investments, and my private ones, has been so much easier.

Instead of providing anything more for the ordinary public, I now prefer to focus entirely on my peaceful community activities and my creativity-related private pursuits, while I still have the ability to do so.

I hope you consider me to be adequately authentic.

I have, however, been wondering how authentic you claim to be. The evidence suggests you are not at all authentic and nor are you particularly ethical.

You will probably know, by now, that I find all intrusions rude and often quite cruel.

That is why privacy is so important to me.

What is your acquaintance with public administration in the public interest?

What is your acquaintance with water supplies and electricity supplies, in the public interest?

What do you know about the public interest in relation to armed forces and law enforcement?

What is your acquaintance with policy analysis in the public interest?

What do you know about the manipulation of public images and brand images for public relations and propaganda purposes?

Propaganda is never in the public interest.

What do you know about wealth in terms of the public interest?

How do you think about your self-concept in terms of the public interest?

What do you know about freedom of information in relation to the public interest?

How do you think about trustworthiness in terms of the public interest?

How do you think about taxation in terms of the public interest?

I prefer to highlight the good in the world, not the nasty, the macabre or the tragic. I do my best to identify the good as it has been expressed in various parts of the world, in various centuries.

Establishing yourself as a good example to follow is obviously one of the most important aspects of your leadership, in the public interest.

What do you know about public morality and private morality in terms of the public interest?

What is your awareness of good governance as a public utility, in the public interest?

What do you know about public records, public service announcements, public broadcasting and public art, in the public interest?

How do you usually respond to graciously dignified questioning?

Perhaps you do not believe my questioning of you is graciously dignified. I do my best to avoid being emotive.

What is your acquaintance with the primary care provided by health care providers?

What is your acquaintance with science-based primary health care processes and procedures?

What is your acquaintance with child care and foster care?

What is your acquaintance with assisted living, disability care, the care of the elderly, palliative care and the provision of home care by professional caregivers?

What is your acquaintance with emergency medicine and intensive care medicine?

What is your acquaintance with grief counselling and other forms of mental health support?

How have you already considered contributing to my community mission, in the public interest, rather than my former public mission?

Do you currently have a public mission in the public interest?

Do you currently have a community mission in the public interest?

Do you currently have a private mission in the public interest?

The world is too corrupt for me to overcome its cruelty on my own.

Only you can help me. How will you do so?

Should I regard you as the personification of the public interest?

How do you think about the common good in relation to the public interest?

What is your acquaintance with the concepts of open access and open government and open science and open research and open societies and open mindedness and openness to experience?

The highly trained volunteers in Frugality Cottage do their best to prevent people from acting on the basis of ulterior motives, as do I, not only here in the cottage itself but everywhere.

What do you know about lobbying in relation to the public interest?

How do you think about soft media and other forms of entertainment in terms of the public interest?

Where do you usually locate important information on policy, politics and potential disasters, and for what purpose?

Where have you discovered important political news, in the public interest, regarding sexual interests and other vested interests?

What do you know about legal interests and national interests in terms of the public interest?

What is your acquaintance with public economics, public goods, public works, public capital, public life and public-private partnerships?

What is you acquaintance with language ideology in relation to the public interest?

What is your acquaintance with information subsidies and media transparency in relation to the public interest?

Did you require a key in order to gain access to Frugality Cottage today?

You may have been wondering why I am providing you with this information, and this investment opportunity.

Perhaps you do not usually regard information about the public interest as an investment opportunity.

What is your acquaintance with the transparency of markets?

What is your acquaintance with the transparency, and possibly even the invisibility and silence, of ethereal beings?

There is no hidden agenda here.

The greater good is the basis of all my work.

And the greater good never involves ignoring the essential needs of anyone.

An enlightened agenda outlines proposed achievements for the greater good.

In the public interest, no-one's needs should ever be ignored.

An enlightened agenda serves the public interest very well indeed.

I am not particularly interested in what you have been doing but I am interested in why you have been doing it and how your actions and intentions are compatible with my own.

Are you sure you are attempting to become a more competent player on the world stage, or even merely from backstage?

When, if ever, have performers on the world stage acted in the public interest?

Where, if anywhere, have you discovered real world leadership?

As my public mission has now ended, and my community mission has now mainly been delegated to suitably trained community members, I am mostly devoted to private collaborations in the present, hence my investment notes and educational notes to you, dear reader.

Do you gain pleasure from playing with ideas and/or playing with words and/or by being serious with both?

You have provided me with no satisfactory answers to that question as yet.

Words are meaningless unless they are adequately attached to relevant ideas in the minds of recipients.

When your serious concerns are ignored by persons of influence, how do you subsequently respond?

What is your acquaintance with cryptography, its associated keys and the necessity for cryptic communications in corrupt societies, with or without assistance from individuals in crypts?

How, if at all, do you prevent encryption from being used for unjustifiable deception and every other unethical practice?

Perhaps you consider pets to be more trustworthy than people.

Please note, however, that there are no pets and livestock permitted here.

Pets and livestock are incompatible with intelligent frugality. They have a tendency to make a mess, particularly in bedrooms, sitting rooms and libraries. They also tend to be highly disruptive in kitchens and gardens.

What do you know about the public interest in relation to pets and livestock?

What do you know about the public interest in relation to nature?

I am writing to you in the hope that you still have a little empathy hidden somewhere within the depths of your long forgotten, true temperament.

What if you discover your true self is not, in fact, a particularly nice person at all?

After all, I am writing these notes to your social self, namely the one you present in public, and within most of your community activities, and possibly even through most of your online activities, whether privately or publicly.

Goodness is wonderful. Evil is not, even when other people may try to persuade you otherwise.

Yet electoral systems often require voters to endorse the implementation of evil public policies as well as good ones.

In some elections, voters have no choice but to select an evil candidate or none at all.

Perhaps you would rather amuse yourself with genre fiction, video games, cryptic crosswords, television viewing, face painting, hair styling, and/or the consumption of junk food, alcoholic beverages and/or social media.

I can only help people to vote better if they allow me to provide them with notes such as this one.

Do you have a playful approach to voting or a serious approach?

Where do you usually experience thoughtful discussions?

Unlike most people, I do not have a social self. I only have an authentic self.

I completed ignore social norms and therefore act in accordance with my conscience, in the public interest.

If you are inadequately compatible with me, my investments in you will merely become gambles. I am unwilling to gamble in or with anyone or anything.

Gambling is never in the public interest.

How, then, should I invest in you?

How do you prefer to invest in the public interest, and why?

If someone has coerced you to be here, that person has behaved inappropriately. I disapprove of all forms of unjustifiable coercion.

When, if ever, is coercion in the public interest?

Where do you prefer to display the fruits of your freedom, in the public interest?

What is your acquaintance with the concepts of authentication and provenance, particularly in relation to the public interest?

How do you prefer to compare the year 1434 with the year 2034?

How do you prefer to compare the Cryptic era of 4533 million years ago with the Anthropocene?

Answering such questions is obviously important to do, in the public interest.

I do not like fuss or fussiness, or blandness, or fashion.

I detest wastefulness.

Yet I appreciate art and the beauty to be found in nature.

I try to make my experiences of nature as comfortable as necessary.

I cannot see any point in unnecessary discomfort or any form of extravagance.

You may have noticed, however, that I have the ability to camouflage myself quite well in public places, and in private libraries, and in quite a variety of community settings.

Perhaps you prefer to address crises through the display of crypsis, in the public interest, and for reasons of personal safety.

Whenever I have tried to reason with a bigoted point of view, I have only ever received an unreasonable response.

I am not a bigot. I am entirely incompatible with such persons.

Bigotry is never in the public interest.

I am a good investor as well as a successful one. In fact I have long been a very successful investor. I only invest in other good investors which is why I have been successful.

Why have I often felt out of place if not for the fact that most places are dominated by bullies?

Are you sure you are not a bully and/or hypocrite?

I know for certain I am not such a person.

As I completed my public activities adequately, in accordance with my public mission, I have since been devoting my attention entirely towards community-related problem-solving pursuits and creativity-related private pursuits, as I am sure you are very well aware by now, if you have been paying adequate attention to my notes.

I only ever support peaceful, highly reasonable approaches to solving problems.

Which approach do you most support, and why?

How do you prefer to solve problems in support of the public interest, and why?

Are you sure your intelligence and thoughtfulness are adequate?

Perhaps you are neither relatively intelligent nor adequately thoughtful.

Perhaps you are often unaware of when boundaries are adequately clear and when they are not.

How do you attempt to distinguish between similar species?

How do you attempt to distinguish between one political group and another?