[book] The Call Of Character By Mari Ruti (9/10)

[Pelin]

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Should we feel inadequate for failing to be healthy, balanced, and well-adjusted? Is such an existential equilibrium realistic or even desirable? Condemning our cultural obsession with cheerfulness and "positive thinking," Mari Ruti calls for a resurrection of character that honors our more eccentric frequencies, arguing that sometimes the most tormented and anxiety-ridden life can also be the most rewarding. (from the backcover)

 

This book was quite an interesting one for me. It's written in a scholarly manner, yet comprehensible for the average reader. I would recommend it to people who are interested in reading about what drives humans and what makes up character. Some small quotes I found interesting in this book:

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As soon as we enter the world, we are bombarded by networks of culturally condoned desires that train us to want what everyone else wants, so that it becomes virtually impossible for us to tell the difference between desires that originate from our private universe and ones that originate from the pool of publicly sanctioned yearnings.

Whenever we pursue desires that support our ideals, we feel real.

Why should the good life equal a harmonious life? Might not the good life rather be one that includes just the right amount of anxiety? Isn't anxiety (along with desire) what propels us forward, thereby keeping us from stagnating?

Pursuing new editions of ourselves is not the same thing as pursuing perfection, wholeness, or a complete lack of pain. It is not a matter of accomplishing the impossible, but rather obtaining higher levels of complexity, suppleness, discernment, and interpersonal penetration; it is a matter of seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty, so that we are able to recognize when life is satisfying enough- when it is as satisfying as it can get within certain limitations.