Is Character innate or is it situational?

Albert Einstein is said to have stated that:

“Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.”

If character is such a necessary component for our personality, what exactly is it? The dictionary meaning of character is as follows:

“The combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another; A distinguishing feature or attribute, as of an individual, group, or category; A structure, function, or attribute determined by a gene or group of genes; Moral or ethical strength.”

“Character” in most common usage is referred to as our moral fibre, or the moral qualities we possess. This would imply a variety of attributes like honesty, loyalty, integrity, courage, and fortitude.

Is Character inborn and would it be consistent throughout a person’s life or is it situational, subject to change due to situations?

Both these divergent views have strong basis of support.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has said that “Character develops itself in the stream of life.” This is in line with Aristotle's view that character is based on naturally occurring psychological responses. This would imply that everyone is capable of becoming better than they are. In specific circumstances the moral fibre or character of a person could be improved. Thus if we keep good company we would develop a positive character. The reverse then could also be true that in given circumstances a person could do things out of character. An example could be a situation where a normally honest person could be tempted into doing a wrong act.

The other end of the philosophical divide states that character is consistent and not open to variance. Psychologist Lawrence Pervin defines moral character as "a disposition to express behaviour in consistent patterns of functions across a range of situations"

Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have quoted “No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.”

Would this always be true? If it were then would not any attempt to improve the spirit of a person be a wasted effort? Religion which professes to improve the moral character of a person would be meaningless.

We are shaped by the circumstances of our existence and get moulded with the flow of our lives. We are affected by our society, traditions, culture, and economic situations. Our outlook on right and wrong changes with time, hence the values we associate with them do so to. In such a scenario moral character could be situational. In the words of Albert Einstein “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”

A First Job is like a First love, Unforgettable

Some time ago I spoke to a former colleague after a gap of almost 20 years. While reminiscing our times together he remarked, “A first job is like a first love”.

That remark has stuck with me the last few months. It was chance that I also happened to meet a couple of colleagues of mine from my first company just yesterday, some after a gap of 20 years. Yesterday’s meeting helped me to focus on those lines and I have attempted to understand the similarities between the two, the first job and the first love.

It finally came down to these lines from Tim McGraw:

“Like an old photograph
Time can make a feeling fade
But the memory of a first love
Never fades away.”

When we join our first jobs we are young and idealistic and money has not blinkered our approach. The sense of right and wrong and fairness are still embedded from a life spent in school and college getting an education at times far removed from reality. It’s something like being in love for the first time, no right, no wrong, just love, just affection?

With time we become more cynical, and begin to realize, that on the scales weighing right and wrong, the scales will always tilt towards the side of benefit. The victories and failures which will come later, maybe in different jobs, will ground us out of an idealistic approach.

I noticed that when we got together, it was so much easy to relax and talk, of days when we did crazy things, crazy gossips. There was virtually no malice or anger, just fond memories.

It may be that time smoothens some of the roughness of past engagements and incidents, but what we all would agree is that the mystique and pleasure of getting the first pay check, is unforgettable. The memories and people associated with that first pay check will always linger on.

Is Fate a Welcome Guest?

A number of years ago I saw an all time classic “Lawrence of Arabia”. One very memorable line of the film was “It is written”.

Destiny, fate, kismet all refers to a perception that there is a predetermined course of events and that our future is predetermined. What I understood from that line from Lawrence of Arabia was that certain things are inevitable. Like the rising of the Sun, producing light and removing darkness. The pessimistic view would be that at the end of the day the sun sets and there is darkness everywhere.

Literature has frequent reference to fate. In "The Appointment in Samara" by W. Somerset Maugham, fate’s inevitability is given:

(The speaker is Death)

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samara and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samara.

(http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/Maugham-AS.htm)

In another context, the soldiers of the light brigade in their famous charge in the Crimean War knew their fate, which was death, and yet they welcomed it leaving a permanent mark on history.

(http://poetry.eserver.org/light-brigade.html “Charge of the light Brigade, by Lord Alfred Tennyson )

So do we run from fate, as in the first case or welcome it as in the second? In welcoming fate, do we avoid the tension and fear of negativity and manage to live our lives in greater harmony?

In the words of William Shakespeare:

“What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide”

Sympathy and Support

“Friends are the pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up, sometimes they lean on you, and sometimes it's just enough to know that they are standing by.”

Sympathy is a word derived from Greek, meaning “together” and “suffer”. Thus when people share in others grief, they are being sympathetic. We could also say that sympathy displays the notion of understanding another’s grief and denotes that you are with him in this hour of need. The word empathizing is used interchangeably and can mean responding to another’s emotional distress

Sympathy is also closely linked with compassion. We often equate sympathizing with giving in times of need. Excessive sympathy can be fraught with dangers.

I feel that too much sympathy can become a disabling emotion when a person’s attitude becomes one of receiving emotional understanding for difficult situations. So the focus shifts away from the positive or taking corrective action to one of making people understand situations in a favorable way to extricate assistance. Thus the focus is away from setting things right yourself to expecting help and getting someone else to do your job. One saying which has always borne this point out is:

Give me a fish, I eat for a day
Teach me how to fish, I eat for a lifetime.

The essence in both is assistance, however in the first; the person receiving help becomes dependent on someone else while in the second case he becomes dependent on himself. In the first case he receives sympathy. You need to be sympathetic with people but you must ensure that sympathy does not act like a crutch where they loose the ability for action on their own. In the second case also a person is getting sympathy, but with a path to progress, helping the sufferer stand up by himself.

In today’s world where there is so much hardship and financial crisis, we need understanding and support, but we need to understand that sympathy will not get us out of problems. It could help us to unload burdens; the final results however would be due to our actions.

Remember the words of Oscar Wilde

“I can sympathize with everything, except suffering.”

Is Hope a denial of Reality?

Is reality a physical state? Or is it a mental state? Is there any reality at all?

“What is reality?”

Reality is a defined as the state of things as they actually exist. There are different levels of reality in western philosophy, such as:

Truth : Truth is supposed to be an agreement of facts
Fact : Something that can be verifiable as per some existing standards

Reality is linked to perception, or how we view things.

Suppose a person has 3 bowls of water at 3 different temperature levels, hot temperature, room temperature and cold water. If he puts his hands in the bowl which has hot water and then puts it in the bowl with water at room temperature, then he will feel the water at room temperature is cold. However if he puts his hands into the cold water, and then the bowl with water at room temperature he will feel that the water at room temperature is warm.

Till some years ago it was a fact that there were 9 planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Today, however astronomers have voted Pluto as a dwarf planet. So what was a fact a few years ago is no longer a fact today.

Before the Beijing Olympics, the reality was that Mark Spitz had won the maximum number of Gold medals in a single Olympics. That reality changed when Michael Phelps won at 8 gold medals.

So we see that that both truth and fact are relative as is reality to a certain time frame.

So there is no permanence in reality. This is similar to the Hindu belief in Maya, which is derived from the words “Not” and “that”. As per this belief, the world is unreal because it is unstable, unreliable and impermanent. It is constantly changing and not permanent and hence an illusion.

Since reality is rooted only in the present and hope is an expression of positive outcome in the future, Hope can not be a denial of reality.

Therefore if we are stressed out today because of the economic crisis, we would should remember that this is impermanent, and hope and work for a better future.

Happiness

What is Happiness? Is it a way of life, is it an emotion or is it a state of mind? Or is happiness an illusion, a mirage chased by people for its own sake? Or is it the opposite of sadness?

Happiness is an emotion associated with multiple feelings such as contentment and satisfaction. Bliss and intense joy are other emotions associated with happiness. In trying to understand happiness there could be a variety of biological, philosophical or religious approaches.

Parenthood and seeing your child for the first time is an example of the biological state of happiness. It’s a feeling which can not be described, only experienced. Marriage could be considered happiness in a psychological state.

Mohandas K. Gandhi:

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

According to Aristotle, “happiness is the only emotion that humans desire for its own sake”. This would lend one to believe that for Aristotle, happiness was something pure, bereft of any adulteration. He further clarified that men sought riches, honor not for their own sake but to achieve happiness and lead a good life.

If that is so, did achieving riches bring joy or happiness? Are they one and the same?

Many Philosophers have defined happiness as living a good or virtuous life.

According to Buddhist teachings, Happiness focuses on obtaining freedom from suffering by following the Eightfold Path. In the Buddhist view, ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms.

Is overcoming craving a form of contentment?

Thomas Aquinas has described happiness as a “Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life”. Happiness is the eternal reward for those who lead a virtuous life, as dictated by the scriptures in most religions.

Buddha:

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.

I personally feel that the words of Anne Frank, a child of thirteen probably understood happiness in its most simplistic and pure forms. This is what she had to say:

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.