"Character"
Don't just "have" it. Build It.
"Our duty is to compose our character,
not to compose books, to win not battles and provinces,
but order and tranquillity in our conduct.
Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live properly."
- Montaigne
Perhaps you are a falcon among pigeons. Or perhaps you should eat fewer beans.
article by LiveReal Agent "Blake the Clean" and "Magnellyn"
A few ideas that would make
a lot of uptight scientists mad:
Man Carving His Own Destiny
You are not a bag of genes.
You are not a bundle of conditioned reflexes.
You are not a two-legged animal with an overgrown intellect.
You are not your car, your job, your clothes, income, house, watch, or savings account.
You are not a large blob of hormones.
You are not a slave of brain chemicals.
You are not a cluster of instincts.
You are not a bucket of flaws.
You are not a puppet of television, music,video games, pop culture, or peer pressure.
You are not a self in desperate need of esteem.
You are not the end-product of events that happened when you were two.
You are not measured by the size of your salary,expense account, or stock options. . . . unless you let yourself be.
"Are you really you
or are you
what people have told you
you are?"
- Leo Buscaglia
"CHARACTER."
We hear the word every once in a while.
We hear and talk about someone having "lots of it" or a "lack of it" . . .
we hear how we're supposed to build it, change it, or develop it, etc etc . . .
we hear how we are supposed to get rid of some parts of it, keep other parts of it . . . we hear how we "reveal" it or "discover" it . . .
. . . But what is it?
One might think that all the fuss we all hear about "character" nowadays is more than just empty hype and posing.
"We say we want a renewal of character in our day
but we don't really know what we ask for.
To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of
a creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates and compels.
This price is too high for us to pay.
We want character but without conviction;
we want strong morality but without
the emotional burden of guilt or shame;
we want virtue but without particular moral justifications
that invariably offend;
we want good without having to name evil;
we want decency without the authority to insist upon it;
we want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom.
In short, we want what we cannot possibly have
on the terms that we want it."
- James Davison Hunter
And so, while digging through this complex, immense, awe-inspiring task, have your trusty and valiant LiveReal Agents completely figured it all out?
Well . . . no.
But at the same time, we figure it is worth looking into.
But, being the noble, valiant, magnan . . . magnanim . . . um, the swell characters we are, we figured we'd better do whatever we can to get the bottom of it . . . or at least, maybe make a little progress.
(OK, so maybe we didn't succeed, but hey, don't blame us for it. It was our genes' fault.)
"Under peaceful conditions
a warlike man sets upon himself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
So, first stop . . . What IS Character?
It's The LiveReal Quiz.
. . . can you take it?