After i wrote about character recently i got a few emails asking what i meant, as it seemed a little old fashioned. Old fashioned seems to touch people in a strange place. As i’ve been reflecting on it recently, i’ve come to understand just how important, in fact, no, critical, character really is. It’s something i’ve strived for all my life and looked for in others but never been able to name explicitly. The lack of it repulses me. I knew it was more than just the need for honesty, or courage, or compassion, or strength. It was the combination of all them. But i couldn’t put my finger on what i meant.

What makes the difference between success and failure? Character. What makes the difference between significance and irrelevance? Character. What does the herd lack that the shepherd has? Character. What is distinctly lacking in contestants on daytime talk shows and the morons on the fruit machines? Character. Why are compulsive liars, fantasists and attention seekers so hideous? They have no character.

Marcos (a man of tremendous character) met me on the train at Clapham last week out of pure coincidence and i enjoyed his amiable wisdom, as always. Naturally we chatted about how and when he and my sister are going to get married this year, but he was fascinating in his observance of yours truly. I had been rather blunt with a family friend and he was explaining why he looked at me with such curiosity; his analogy was of a raft of burning arrows raining down from the sky and how for others, like him and my sis, they pierce the skin and wound a person right in the heart. But with me they just rain down and i take no notice because they just don’t penetrate – i look at them, smile, and say they don’t mean anything at all. They just bounce off and i enjoy the rain.

No doubt it will do wonders for my Spartan pretensions. I just need the six pack and i’ll all there.

To understand what i mean about character, we should start at the beginning. Once you know what it is, you can see what you don’t have. The dictionary defines character (moral character) thus:

• the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.
• the inherent complex of attributes that determines a persons moral and ethical actions and reactions; “education has for its object the formation of character”- Herbert Spencer
• moral or ethical quality: a man of fine, honorable character.
• qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity: It takes character to face up to a bully.
• good repute; “he is a man of character”
• Character refers esp. to moral qualities, ethical standards, principles, and the like: a man of sterling character.

And there can be no better reference than the army, as their whole mission is to build it:

We define character as the sum of those qualities of moral excellence that stimulates a person to do the right thing, which is manifested through right and proper actions, despite internal or external pressures to the contrary.

United States Air Force Academy

A group of personal qualities that come together to form something bigger. What kind of qualities?

Compassion, courtesy, cooperation, responsibility, fairness, tolerance, self-control, courage, knowledge, citizenship, perseverance, helpfulness, honesty, and respectfulness.

But there’s no better way of understanding what character is than to see what it actually looks like. The new film about Elizabeth I has a fantastic and dramatic example that doesn’t leave any room for doubt. In the scene below, the queen has been told about a plot to assassinate her and place her Catholic cousin on the throne in preparation for a Spanish invasion. She is righteously furious, but her true strength appears when the contemptuous Spanish ambassador insults her moral conduct. What comes next is an internal hurricane of outrage as she screams of another, military, hurricane if is she tested.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6633582612332433874" height="400" width="500" /]

Now that, my friends, is character. It makes great men strong and women more beautiful than their make-up ever could.

There is also a little maxim about how your life is affected by who you are which sums it up perfectly:

Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words;
Be careful of your words for your words become your deeds;
Be careful of your deeds, for your deeds become your habits;
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character;
Be careful of your character for your character becomes your destiny.

For example, you think seems easier to lie than to face a potential disagreement /awkward situation by telling the truth. So you tell a lie. Then you do something to back up your lie. It seems to work so you do it again and again. Before you know it, the truth is a stranger and your life is based on maintaining your own web of lies. In the end, you have as a black hole bringing black clouds wherever you go and ruin the possibility of being anyone of any significance or beauty. To be a liar is a to have of weak character, or have no character at all.

If you really sit down and take an honest look at your life, you will know what is in your heart by the fruit it has born in it. If you look where you have ended up, or where you are likely to, you can see just what you are made of. For most, it will be an alarming discovery, which is why you almost certainly won’t do it. What you think becomes what you say, which becomes what you do. That then becomes your routine, your character and your destination. All are linked. See where you are, go back, and you will understand why you are in the mess you are in.

Ironically, the thing that gets you out of the mess and to where you to need to go, is character itself.

Are you compassionate? Are you co-operative? Are you responsible? Are you fair and tolerant? Are you disciplined and courageous? When things get tough do you cry like a trembling fool or fall into black depression at apparent “failure”?

Or are you just walkover pretending to be all of those things? Maybe you’re just another wet blanket who thinks being stubborn and proud makes you “strong”. The same reasoning that makes you think anger “protects” you somehow, being able to suffer starvation means you do actually have “control” and being frozen cold keeps you “safe”. None of those are moral character. In fact, they are indicative of someone who has none at all as they make it clear you cannot deal with difficulty and probably have never really had to.

Virgil explains it well:

“The many often attack the one with hate and fury and their sharp weapons. But if he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and exposed to the winds and beaten against by tidal waves, he laughs inside at all that stuff.”

But my personal favourite, and self-evident king of all is:

“Building character looks ruthless: it eliminates weak ones.”

Darrell Royal

This answered so many questions for me about the last few years. I have always looked for character and been attracted to it. I respect it. I admire it. I strive for it in myself, and i fall in love with it in people. But i also despise those without it. The more yours develops, the more violent the exile it enforces on those who don’t make the grade. Everyone close to me has great character, and i somehow automatically kick out those without it. It makes me cringe when it’s so blatantly absent. It’s worth pointing out that having moral character doesn’t mean raw strength – it means integrity, clarity, prescence, backbone and the fortitude to stand out of the crowd for who you are. That can the most profound vulnerability and weakness in a lot of cases.

Those who are honest enough to admit their faults and weakness have great character. Those who resolve to ask for help and change for the better have the very greatest.

It makes my own revulsion and others’ weaknesses so much easier to understand internally. So many times i’ve been pulling my hair out asking why he won’t sort it out, why she lies so compulsively, why they are so blind, and so on. The answer is so blissfully simple: they have no moral character. There is a peace in accepting that these rather undesirable types that have frustrated me are simply unable or unwilling to act any differently because they are incapable of it. They lack the fibre to be able to do it. Like all things character can be built, but it takes time and trial.

This is why you so frequently find a lack of character in sheltered little brats, as it is only built through perseverance and suffering. They have little to no life experience. The worst kind is when their complaining and lying descends into outright fantasy and they tantrum appallingly that you don’t believe their absurd stories and claims that aren’t even remotely plausible or realistic. Trying to explain to one without any moral character why you, who has character, doesn’t even entertain their silly notions is a bit like asking a PhD in neural science to communicate the details of quantum physics to a West African chimpanzee staring at a coconut in his hand. I’ve seen enough and been through enough to know it’s bullshit, and it’s painful experience that forced reality down my throat against my will.

The wise will have already thought ahead and understood to ascertain exactly my opinion of you and your closeness to me is a reflection on whether you yourself have character. Look at where you are in my life. Even if i don’t agree with you, don’t like you, or am totally different to you, i will respect and be fond of you if i see character in you. Conversely, if you have been unceremoniously thrown out of my life and my contempt for you has created a wall of silence, to me you have no character whatsoever. Lack of character is the death knell for your place in my life.

But i’m not one without hope. Character is built so very naturally through struggle and there is a limit to how angry you can be at someone without it – it’s hardly as if you can wish suffering on anyone, as much as you might want to. I do believe even the very worst offenders can develop character – become trustworthy, honourable and loyal; compassionate, understanding and honest; courageous, resilient and positive.

Today we found out that the Shelter (EveryonesHome) didn’t make it to the last 15 of the Spark challenge, which was immensely disappointing. John took it well considering. For whatever reason it just wasn’t right. We will know why some day. But like i wanted to say to him, the perseverance always pays dividends because it produces character, and character produces hope because of it’s remarkable strength and purity. It’s through trial that we learn who we are and where we are going. It’s at the times when it seems the darkest that we come to learn just how resilient and courageous we are. Within a day we started on a new plan with renewed vigour.

You could see the application not going through as a “failure”, as many would. It is character that strengthens and guides us in times of doubt and makes us resist the urge to give up as we seem something more important than our immediate need for grief and self-pity. And that is the journey is more valuable than the destination itself, and there are many roads that all lead to the same place. Those who change the world can see past obstacles and look for ways to branch new paths everywhere they go – for themselves or others to follow. Without character, we struggle to even get out of bed. It’s easier just to give up, lie, manipulate, whinge, cheat, pacify and let anyone and anything else control your fate and be responsible.

Character says get back up and try again; that a blockade in the road means you need to change something; that not everything that happens is a personal slur or attack on your self-worth or competence; that getting it wrong means keep modifying until you get it right; to fight in the dark when you can’t see where the light will come from; that you should rise above your circumstances and create what you want to exist; that shit happens and just because it doesn’t work it out at that exact moment in the way you selfishly demand that you should break down, fall apart or lose all heart. Having character means you feel all of those same things but you resist the pressure and override the dark thoughts without indulging them.

It is character that says no; to find a way to say yes; to hold truth to be the most important of all; to hold to your values and principles; drives you on to be better; to find a way where there is none; keeps the light on when it is dark; to smile and carry on in the face of the storm. But most all, character is what allows you to rest knowing that when the sun comes up the next day, there will be another chance.

“A man’s character is like his guardian divinity.”
Heraclitus

“Character is what you are in the dark.”
Dwight Moody

“Two good hints of a person’s basic and not totally dormant character can be (a) how he treats people who can’t do him any good in return, and (b) how he treats people who can’t fight back.”
Abigail Van Buren

“A man’s reputation is what other people think of him; his character looks like what he really is.”
Jack Miner

“At times a person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.”
G. C. Lichtenberg

“Good character is often more outstanding than outstanding talent. Talents are to some extent looked on as gifts. Good character, on the other hand, is hardly given. It depends in part on good choice, courage and determination along with temperament, and firmness comes in between.”
John Luther

“Feel free to make the most of yourself, if that is all there is of you.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Character may be looked at as the long-range sum of a person’s favourite choices or preferences, if you like.”
P. B. Fitzwater

“Few superficial people can distinguish the genuinely good from the other.”
Ava Gardner

“Great character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.”
Jacqueline Bisset

“If you don’t run your own life, somebody else will. Have that fear.”
John Atkinson

“It could be that between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.”
Walter Lippmann

“Character is the result of two things: Mental attitude and the way we spend our time.”
Elbert Hubbard

“There is perhaps no better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.”
William M. Bulger

“Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character… ”
Stephen R. Covey

“Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.”
Henry Clay

“All should live so that nobody may readily believe transgressors.”
Plato

“You can regulate your life by standards you look up to when at your best.”
John M. Thomas

“It can be sort of handy that brute men fairly regularly show their character by what they think laughable, agreeable and regrettable.”
William James