I’ve decided to kick off these weekly Philosophic Friday posts with what I think is the crux of all pursuits of wisdom: personal character.
The etymology of the word Character traces back to Greek kharacter, which is properly “a stamping tool” or “instrument for marking.” The impression or engraved mark left behind by the tool took on the name kharacter as well. By metaphor the ancient Greeks transferred the word to symbols or imprints that are defining qualities or features of the soul.
In performance and leadership coaching contexts the word Character is used this way: qualities, features, traits, characteristics. But, it also moves deeper than surface qualities to get to the interior and intentionality of the person: their values, principles, convictions, purpose. This is borne by another Greek word that is used in this context: ethos. Ethos is the root for ethics, the principles of behavior for a person or a culture. In this vein, character is often expanded imaginatively to include a person’s vision, goals, hopes, objectives, and dreams.
You may be a little more dynamic and define character as the culmination or collection of a person’s habits and behaviors. If you’re astutely experiential in your assessments, you’ll add that character is shown in adversity. Press a person, and what oozes out is their character, who they really are. You might say that Character is what you’re made of, your composition.
But Character has more meanings.
For example, in the real estate world, we talk about homes or cities having character. For a city, it might be a combination of distinguished neighborhoods, architectural splendor, interconnectivity with the natural landscape, a dynamic cultural fabric. Pittsburgh—with its steel bridges and gondola at the intersection of two rivers—has a different character than Seattle with its Space Needle and Pike’s Market. We say that a building has character if it has architectural elements that distinguish it from the buildings that surround it. We often hear that older homes are more desirable than new homes because they “have character,” in the form of old built-ins or smaller, intimate rooms, and the like. I take personal delight when I read an article that calls out a tony neighborhood, a neighborhood with homes having fashionable character and style.
We call letters on our keyboard “characters”, like the letter A. we also call letters like the letter A found on a rubber stamp a “character”. We call the A on our screen a character, and we call the A stamped by our rubber stamp a character.
Perhaps the most recognizable use of the word and idea is when we talk about a character in a play or book or movie. Sometimes we experience characters that are two-dimensional. They’re flat. They’re the black hat or the white hat, the good guy or the bad guy, the cop or the robber. Flat characters have no development and—honestly—leave no impression on you. In fact, they’re like the scenery in the story, only they move, like the wind blowing leaves along the street in the background. The wind blows; the tumbleweed rolls down the street. The bad guy wants world domination, and the good guy has to stop him. That’s flat.
Add a reason why the bad guy is bad, and you start to get depth of character. Why does the villain want world domination? He “opens up” in some stories, and tells us about his childhood. We feel a smidge of pity, or maybe even empathy, and presto! There’s more to the villain than what meets the eye, more than what’s on the flat surface. There is depth. An impression is made on us, the audience. The villain back story moves us, and we are impressed upon.
I am unabashedly going to tie together Playdoh and Plato with a visualization exercise:
Imagine you have some playdoh. Now imagine you flatten it out so it’s a nice and smooth rectangle. We can say that it’s surface has no character.
Now, imagine you push your finger into the playdoh on the far left of the rectangle surface. You feel yourself leaving an impression: both by you moving AND the playdoh being moved. And now, if you remove your finger, what do you see? Depth. And what can we say? The playdoh has some “character” now.
Take that pretend rubber stamp of the letter A we mentioned above and press it into the playdoh next to the impression of your finger. Notice the difference? Notice how much more information is transferred? In fact, this is the most basic understanding of character. It is the imprint or impression of a letter, a digit, an ideogram, a hieroglyph, a mark, a quality.
Now, imagine that you press a letter M into the playdoh just to the right of the letter A. You get more than just another mark. You do get more character. But, now you also get significance. You get a word. And words are very powerful. In fact, with this exercise, you get what I believe to be the most powerful word in our language… in any language… AM.
What does “am” mean? Obviously, it presupposes the “I” without saying it. I am. “Am” is the first person present active conjugation of the verb to be. When we go from a letter to a word, notice just how much more information is conveyed… and mystery! And opportunity! And power. Two marks, unified on the playdoh, and BAM! You’ve opened the door to the universe.
This is where wonder comes in. And, with wonder, knowledge. In fact, “am” is self-knowledge, knowing yourself. This is what the oracle at Delphi told Socrates to pursue.
Just like the A and the M mark or impress upon the playdoh, we are marked and impressed upon by the people and experiences and challenges and victories of our lives. Socrates calls us to examine our lives, to know our marks that make up our personal characters, to fill in the blank for life’s perennial worksheet: “I am _______.”
So, to close this first ever Philosophic Friday post, I want to encourage you to fill in the blank. Know yourself. Wonder. Fill in the blank over and over and over again, naming your relationships (“I am Mom”), your roles (“I am a banker”), your virtues (“I am kind”), and perhaps your vices (“I am quick-tempered”). Try to get it all down on paper, or in your mind. Be careful or the “I am always____” or “I am never_____” for obvious reasons.
I hope you come to enjoy departing from real estate, leadership, business, strategy, and other pragmatic topics to pursue ideas and wisdom that elevates, anchors, scaffolds, and grounds our practical lives.
I look forward to these Philosophic Fridays with you!