When i heard this... i saw it as another rhyming quote. i couldnt peep much interms of its meaning or its relavence in mundane life...and the quote is the well known this.
If money is lost, nothing is lost.
If health is lost, some thing is lost.
And if character is lost every thing is lost..(long time, my dad told me).
This makes much sense, even if am not a greatly matured guy...
But it brings in its own complications and blurs in its meaning, if i think a little more about it..
obviously i am referring to the last sentence, which in turn might effect the rest of the two.
Character! what actually it means. who defines it ? and what it stands for ! Obviously its a concept worth giving a thought. And my school inculcates a few qulities by teaching a few strong sayings such as "An education which can not build character is worthless".
And I find it a little confusing, if it as a concept related to a society to which the person belongs or not. Say otherwise, i.e. its defined absolutely, irrespective of the socitey the person belongs to. Then i can say that, Character is defined for each individual irrespective of the society. Is that defination the same for everybody ? or varies with person to person ? Even if its same or different for each individual, who decides it. well, say character is some thing that is defined by each individual to himself. i.e. he sets a set of principles to which he determines to cling to forever. It sounds convincing to a good extent, as it involves the concept of self satisfaction and retaining of self identity and also if its otherwise(set by sbd else), then that will be more of regulation-kind than of ethical. Then obviously the concept of Character paradoxic. Because, a characterless guy has lost his character(if you like to say so), in gaining self satisfaction, which infact could have been well in his own set of principles. Infact, from this scinario, hardly anyone can ever be a characterless fellow, because, one always retains his character according to his defination.. So from this definition, even a murderer, a rapist or a prostitute is full of character. And i would rather then give Health a bigger seat than to Character. However one of the hindu myths also supports(doesnt it?) it by saying, all the gods come to a common openion that a butcher(viz. Dharmaveda, if am not wrong), who performs his job to perfection without guilty, and considering it as his worship, is the ideal of human race.
Or say, its defined by a society, then it unmistakably varies from society to society. And say a guy moves from one society to another for a short period. So if he follows his own society's defination, he might well be crossing the defination set by the current society, or vice versa and ending up a characterless person. And to add to its complexity, character is one thing that if lost once, cant be regained. For example, say a guy from orthodoxic indian tradition goes to another extreme culture. Then eating beaf or having alcohol or roaming loosely.. should he treat that society's ppl as being slack ! Since now he is part of that community, he has every right to
participate in defining Character. you might say, well since he originally did not belong to that community, he has no right to impose his views on that community. ok.. Letz say thats right. But then, if he should mixup with the people over there, as if he finds nothing wrong with their actions ? if Yes, then he is committing self-deception, by playing two faces which i feel is the meanest. And if No, then he either has to alienate himself from the present society, or should try to change the society.. (extreme!). If he is alienating himself, i feel the quote which we are referring to itself is hiding some thing remarkable. Because, when he is estranging himself, he is loosing most of the things (may be every thing except for self-satisfaction, which eventually would fade), in trying to retain his character !! And he has no right or responsibility to change the society as they are well with in the constraints and principles (defined by their own). And say as and when a person moves to a society he keeps changing himself to that society's habbits and retain his character according to the second argument. Somehow, it doesnt satisfies me,(despite of the saying, 'Be a roman, when you are in Rome') as then the meaning of Character is more of mechanical than moral and more, he is loosing self identity, which is a byproduct of the concept Character..
Which all boils down to the question if one should have a proper openion, respect and definition(more importantly) towards Character ?
So now, "the splinter in my mind driving me mad" is should one accept a fellow who is
characterless (according to one's definition) ! (And ofcourse, there is an incident which triggered this train of thoughts, which unfortunately can not be publicized. Since, there is another saying which says "if a word crosses lip, its capable of crossing the planet", i keep my mouth absolutely shut (did actually I !?) and worse, it was none of my business even to commen on that. However i felt, there was a great deal to be learnt from.)
And then i convince myself with the answer NO. a simple no. As, i see no point in contradicting my sub-concious mind committig self-deception, accepting somebody else's wrong act(from my perspective) as right(as his frame of reference claims)... I belive, i fail to fine a satisfying point to convince myself otherwise.
