Being a Character with Character
My S.O. and I went to the movies last night. Being fans of Clint Eastwood movies (all of them) we decided to go to his newest, "Gran Torino". It has been a long time since I've been to a movie where no one in the theater moved or spoke as the credits began to roll. There was complete silence as the images we had just witnessed sank in. There was not even applause. The silence spoke volumes. It had me thinking the rest of the night about character and what defines character.
Character has many definitions and applications which are most often determined by applying our own morals and values against the actions and motives of others. In the beginning of the movie, Clint's persona, Walt, is judged by his unwavering, biased, thin-lipped disdain of those around him. He is a stubborn, hard man we would in real life shrug off as a disagreeable "character" not worth the bother. I find it amusing that the people we label as "being a character" are so labeled because we think their moral compass is a little off kilter, yet we prize a person displaying what we call "good character". Harvey Keitel in "Pulp Fiction" said, "Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character". True, but not being a character also doesn't automatically mean you have character.
We all have character. We are all characters to someone else. Clint's Walt is surrounded by characters, as well as being one himself. It is finding the true character within these people that ultimately frees him to show his own true character. We all have faults, imperfections and weaknesses and having them doesn't mean we lack character. In fact, finding a way to overcome these imperfections often results in people calling us a person of good character.
Most of us get out of bed each morning with good intentions. We have an inner moral compass that guides us through most of our day. We start learning and feeding our morals and virtues from the moment we are born. We learn from the people in our lives; family, neighbors, teachers, peers, coworkers. I have often said, and fully believe that the more we experience in life, the stronger our character becomes. It is ever changing and growing as long as we keep feeding it. The more we pay attention to what is happening around us and our own reactions to those things, the more character develops. There isn't necessarily "good" and "bad" character. Life just isn't that black and white.
A situation that occurred at the movie theater last night also left me reflecting on character. As the theater filled up to a sold out show, a foursome sitting to my left had piled up their coats in the empty seats to either side of them, I'm sure in hopes of having nobody actually sit next to them. As seats became more scarce, the foursome refused more than once to move down one seat in order to open up two seats together. "Let them sit apart" they loudly declared to a theater employee who tried to intervene. I'm sure they believed that their early arrival to get "good seats" somehow made their behavior acceptable. I stood and offered my seat, moving to an empty seat on the other side of my S.O. which forced the foursome to relinquish one of their "saved" seats. My offer, though no super human feat and really only a matter of common decency, produced a loud round of applause from most of the theater whom had been witness to the rude response of the foursome. I was a bit embarrassed as my thinking at the time was I could have moved sooner but hadn't. I had waited until the people next to me had made spectacles of themselves before offering to move. Still, I couldn't help wondering as we drove home that night whether the foursome had gained any insight from the movie, or from the reaction of the others in the theater to their display of character. Did I display better character? I suppose some would say yes. Others, like the foursome I'm sure, might say I waited just long enough in order to make them look foolish rather then letting them make their statement (that is, come early to get good seats).
I often wonder as I fill my blog space with my thoughts whether I sometimes come off sounding somehow all-knowing and full of self-righteous virtues. I understand my moral compass, but I struggle daily with the courage to use it in public. My rantings here are often my way of sorting through the forces of life around me to find the direction my compass wants to take me. Surely I would have been an even better person had I relinquished my seat prior to a theater employee having to become involved. That would have been the better display of "good character", though would have gone largely unnoticed. Having good character isn't about doing "good" things that will be noticed by others and thus glorified. Character is that internal force that guides us through our daily living. Character is the tangible thought in our reactions toward external forces. We all have it and we are constantly making our choices based on our character.
