Character

I spent most of the day...Friday...reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I wish I had read the novel much slower, but I had a lot of free time and it was what I had with me to busy myself with. The novel gave me a lot to think about, but one section stood out in particular:

characters are not born like people, of women; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about

I feel like this idea is true not only in fiction, but in our own lives, from both the perspective of the individual and from the outsiders perception. While our bodies are born from our mothers, I do not believe that our personalities are, which is what truly makes us human. We create our own character. We create who we think we are, and how we think others see us. We also create a character for those around us. I do not think there is universal truth, in this case, I do not think there is one way to define someone. Even though we have this creation of who we are, you are probably the only person who sees yourself that way. So does that make it the true way? Or is it what the majority sees you as? 

So to get back to the quote, I think people try to make themselves unique and individuals. They find things about themselves or portray themselves as someone different. An identity. Can you have an identity if you are a copy of someone else? 

The quote applies much better to how we perceive others. I think we all create a character in our head of the people we meet. Even if you have a brief interaction, you might have a whole picture of who the person is. Based on how they dress or act in one situation you might think you have their whole personality pegged. I experienced this first hand tonight. I saw a guy cross the street and based on how he carried himself, I concluded he was an asshole. I never met the man. We take one bit of information and create a whole person from it. Just like an author might do.

I recommend the book, it has given me a lot to think about and I am still filtering through and processing the thoughts and ideas, which is something I love to get out of a piece.