The Call of Character: Living a Life Worth Living

The Call of Character: Living a Life Worth Living

Mari Ruti

Language: English

Pages: 224

ISBN: 0231164084

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Should we feel inadequate when we fail to be healthy, balanced, and well-adjusted? Is it realistic or even desirable to strive for such an existential equilibrium? Condemning our current cultural obsession with cheerfulness and "positive thinking," Mari Ruti calls for a resurrection of character that honors our more eccentric frequencies and argues that sometimes a tormented and anxiety-ridden life can also be rewarding.

Ruti critiques the search for personal meaning and pragmatic attempts to normalize human beings' unruly and idiosyncratic natures. Exposing the tragic banality of a happy life commonly lived, she instead emphasizes the advantages of a lopsided life rich in passion and fortitude. She also shows what matters is not our ability to evade existential uncertainty but our courage to meet adversity in such a way that we do not become irrevocably broken.

We are in danger of losing the capacity to cope with complexity, ambiguity, melancholia, disorientation, and disappointment, Ruti warns, leaving us feeling less "real" and less connected and unable to process a full range of emotions. Heeding the call of our character means acknowledging the marginalized, chaotic aspects of our being, and it is precisely these creative qualities that make us inimitable and irreplaceable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

debilitate us—such as illnesses, accidents, and other misfortunes—bring something new to our lives, forcing us to adapt and reconfigure ourselves. We are used to thinking about this as a sign of decay, of losing important parts of ourselves. But if we understand human life as a process where process does not necessarily equal progress, even adversities that rob us of our strength or other faculties must be seen as crucial components of this process. It is not a matter of good or bad, positive or

there is a strong link between our sense of lack (emptiness or inner dissatisfaction) and creativity. This is because lack gives rise to desire. It makes us want things, and sometimes the best way to get these things is to invent them. Alternatively, we can scour the world for already existing things that might satisfy us. Either way, we are motivated by the urge to fill the lack within our being: in the same way that an empty room invites us to furnish it, our inner nothingness invites us to

that the Thing symbolizes with an otherworldly paradise, which is arguably one reason religion wields so much power around the globe. But many of us go about the undertaking in the way I have outlined—namely, by finding surrogates for what we think we have lost: we pursue people and various aspirations to alleviate the ache within our being. This is why Lacan asserts that “the object is by nature a refound object.”5 Every “object” (every person or aspiration) we invent or discover is “refound” in

become vehicles for lofty ideals. And it is also why I have proposed that the best way to resurrect the Thing is to locate its sublime echo within worldly objects and activities. In short, the fact that we cannot rise above the world does not mean that we are irrevocably encased in its most mundane aspects—that we are incapable of anything other than our daily routines. 4 It may help to state the matter as follows: there is a distinction between what is “beyond” the world and what is “other

it is possible that these “pathological” lives have come closer to authenticity than many more stable ones. If I state the issue so strongly, it is because I want to call attention to the thoroughly ideological nature of our often absolutely uncontested faith in the value of poise and equanimity. If we had grown up in a different society, we might celebrate other traits instead—say, heroism, courage, or absolute dedication to a cause. By this argument, I do not wish to valorize psychological or

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