Development of our Characters
Book: Normal Rules Don’t Apply – By Kate Atkinson
I was reading a book (predictably), the son and husband fiddling about with their laptops. The short stories in the book, Normal Rules Don’t Apply – By Kate Atkinson, were good. Really – we need more short stories than large novels of our lives, and this particular story was proving it so.
Quote:
“Good looks didn’t count for much with Franklin, he was the handsome child of handsome parents and had witnessed at firsthand the havoc that could be wrought by the pursuit of beauty without truth.”
A simple sentence – borne out generation after generation, and still as relevant in its truth.
In fact as I am writing this post, I thought of the variation of the quote in Jane Austen’s Emma:
“Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.”
― Jane Austen, Emma
Many of us remember the struggle (or continue to struggle depending on age, sex, race, nationality etc) of perception against self-esteem – I suppose it is hard to escape that. Society has improved by spades, but yet I do still see the expectations of eternal youth and raving beauty all around us. It is there in the filters that apps like instagram offer, it is there in the AI generated models’ and their definitions of beauty. It is there in the cosmetics, the advertisements, and even if most folks aren’t consumed by it, they are at the very least affected by it.
Character Building
The building of character, the shaping and becoming of our authentic selves, however is a harder journey, and therefore, that much more satisfying, was it not? Luckily that is where the short story was heading towards. I read on, and stopped to read this piece twice.
“Franklin spent his life under the impression that one day he would be tested, that a challenge would appear out of the blue- a war, a quest, a disaster-and that he would rise to this challenge, and not be found wanting. It would be the making of him, he would come into his own. But what if this never happened, what if nothing was asked of him? Would he have to ask it of himself? And how do you do that?”
I remember writing a short story as a child. It was of a young girl, influenced by adventure books of Enid Blyton, looking for an adventure to prove their worth – their bravery, loyalty, their ‘goodness’ in the world. It was, in hindsight, partially autobiographical. For adventures seemed to come to these protagonists in stories, but seldom on such grand scales to ordinary beings such as us. I asked the middle schooler in our midst about the adventures they had, and he sighed somewhat wistfully, and said, ‘Ugh! Most days, The biggest stuff is whether to run via the library to PE, or return the book after PE, but risk getting to the next class late, amma! There aren’t any adventures! That’s Harry Potter stuff, not for us!”
We laughed and I told him about the story of the girl I wrote as a girl. But I continued musing that night.
Everyday Choices & Grand Tests
Was a Grand Test better than the somewhat lackluster set of everyday choices and conundrums that shaped our characters?
🪅Do you let your friend copy your homework?
🎋Do you give in to the temptation of an extra toffee knowing your sibling will lose their share?
🎏Do you sheepishly confess to being the person responsible for not finishing that group project on time?
Would we welcome the dramatic or realize that solid, everyday security was more difficult to achieve?
‘Dramatic things always have a bitterness for someone.” – L M Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside, Anne of Green Gables series
Whether by dramatic events or small everyday events, we are constantly becoming – as long as we look into the mirror and like the character reflected to us, does it matter?
What do you think? Do you feel our small everyday choices help us take on the dramatic when they do happen, or do we find something within us that we didn’t know existed when the dramatic happens?
Nourish-n-Cherish 