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you are so smart
I enjoyed this post. I agree with you. Like with love..you can tell a person til your blue in the face that you love them but they won't believe it until you show them. Through actions and reactions towards that person. YEP. Acttions speak louder than words. so true. like me losing weight; I would sit and talk about how I should do it for eons but I didn't actually start losing it until I put my plans into action. You can talk about dieting and exercising until your 400 pounds it wont do any good until you acutally START the diet and exercise. Anyways, you're awesome Tim.

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Live Long & Laugh Often
abbymotherfuckraze aka tami

I received an email from a close friend regarding this thread which I'll now quote:

"Someone can choose to take no action at all, and in doing so give the world a glimpse into their inner self. Their lack of action can expose their character."

I would have to agree that someone choosing to take no action can indicate their true character. But let's examine that a little bit closer.

When can we do "no action" whatsoever? Impossible. We are in constant motion, unless we are dead. So if I choose not to help a friend, I am still NOT doing nothing. I'm still doing something. just perhaps not what my friend may have wanted. We can still evaluate this person by their choice of action, when they choose to do one thing in place of any number of other things they could do. In the words of the band Rush:

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Also in this email, my friend discussed another scenario whereby:

"Someone can also display actions that are completely opposite of their true character. Look at the serial killers. Some had families and were "respectable'' members of their communities. BTK serial killer comes to mind.
If they hadn't been caught then they would be remembered by others as being wonderful individuals. But that wouldn't be the truth. My point is that people are able to put on a facade and trick everyone (at least for a while if not indefinitely) around them. I would go so far as to say that most of us wear different masks when it comes to facing the world. It is a defense mechanism. Some have more masks than others, but few wear no mask at all. "

This example I will now dissect in order to apply my thesis to it. When you say that someone can display actions that are completely opposite of their true character, I would have to summarily disagree.

My disagreement hinges on the fact that we can only be ourselves. We cannot get away from being ourselves. Even if we lie or cheat, though the person we are lying to may be fooled as to our true character, our nature is still that of a liar. And using this serial killer example, I would ask then, what is their "true character"? Based on my evaluation a person's "true" self is the sum total of their actions.

If someone helps 10 000 people in their life and secretly murders five people, the fact that they helped ten thousand people does not negate that they are a murderer. The converse is also true, in that the five people that they murdered does not negate that they helped 10 000.

This person is the sum total of their actions. Is this person good or bad, then?

Both.

Like most of us.

When I say the world will define us based on our actions, I do not mean some of the people who know some of the things we do basing their opinion on such limited information, I mean the world as an absolute.... like an independent, disinterested observer. We must add up the evaluations of every person who knows the serial killer (including the people that they killed - their evaluations count too) and add their evaluations in order to get the clearest picture.

Now, is it always possible for any one person to truly know another person? Only to the degree which they know the other person's actions. The more actions of another person you observe, the better you will know them. If you were with someone 24 hours a day you would get to know them quite well. So we cannot let people who do not have a qualified opinion of someone else to be the final judgement on someone's character.

This leads me to another concurrent issue.

Let's imagine that there is a person whose sole intentions are malevolent yet whose actions are purely benevolent. Can we really evaluate them based on their inner malevolence that no one sees, when outwardly they are nothing but benevolent? Obviously not.

And we've all heard this terminology of people wearing "masks" and not being their true self. I disagree. The "masks" we choose to wear are just another facet, a reflection of our own inner self.

If you wear the mask 90% of the time, does it not become you?

Indeed it must.

So in closing, there are no "masks." We are always being our true self, even if our true self is a liar. If pretending to be happy is something that we do, then the character of that person is not hidden. They are someone who pretends to be happy, which is a very revealing characteristic.

You cannot NOT be yourself. Even when you think you are doing something that isn't "normal" for you, it is, or you wouldn't do it.

Even if someone puts a gun to your head and orders you to do something, whatever you choose to do still defines your character, whether you do as that person tells you or if you defy them, in the face of death.

We are the sum total of our actions. I could have the urge to murder ten thousand people daily, yet that doesn't make me a murderer. I could spend my days like Mother Theresa helping untold thousands, but if i murder just one person, I am still a murderer.

The evaluation of someone else's actions is as accurate as the knowledge of their actions is. Can we truly "know" anyone else, then?

Nope.

We can only know ourselves, with absolute accuracy.

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Well... what makes us who we are. Who we are is our SELF. That is a mixture between the ME and the I. The I is impulses, genes, temper, etc. The ME is the social part. What others say about us and how they react towards is. Together they are the SELF. The all in all of our thoughts and actions.

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And he comes to the conclusion:
His mishap was an illusion,
for, he reasons pointedly,
that which must not, can not be.

Morgenstern Gallow Songs

The self can neither be separated from "impulses, genes, temper" nor can it be separated from its social aspect. There are no societies of one person. You are simply labelling the distinction I already gave, of our endo-self from our exo-self and calling one "me" and the other "I."

And I still say that nothing in your category of the "I" part of the self has any real definition of our character, unless it is actually expressed. If it is unexpressed, it may as well not exist, in so far as determining what our character is. If it is expressed, then it has become "action" and defines us. And by "defines us" I mean defines us to everyone else, not to ourselves. Our opinion of our own character is too biased to be reliable and it's even natural for humans to inquire of others about their own character.

Furthermore, who we are is determined by everyone else's opinion of our actions, not our own, because a social context is inescapable and implicit and because our own opinion has no merit. We wouldn't need to know "who" we are if there was only person. The person could define himself anyway he chooses, in that case, and could never be "wrong." Sure we may disagree with everyone else about their assessment of us, but that doesn't necessitate that the disagreement has any merit.

If you have thoughts about killing someone, does that make you a killer? Will other people see you as a killer? Of course not. When we determine "who" someone else is, we go by what their actions are, because that is all to which we have access. Their actions show what is on the inside. What is on the inside may or may not get expressed and is of little, if any value in determining "who" they are in comparison to their actions, which definitely show just that.

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Correct.



Not a definition, no. Together with the "me" it becomes the self. And then it defines character.



I'm glad you see that character definition mostly comes from the "outside". I agree. However, your own opinion has merit, even when disagreeing with the outside. That then, the disagreement, is also a character trait.



If you think about killing people you are someone who thinks about killing people. Just because it isn't put into action doesn't necessarily mean that it's meaningless. However, if you don't even talk about it, it makes it harder to make it part of the definition.

I wouldn't completely rule thoughts out in defining character, what about the "functioning depressed"? Those who do the same things as others and yet - feel nothing or just bad things. Does it not count at all? Or only when expressed and the expression is an action?

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And he comes to the conclusion:
His mishap was an illusion,
for, he reasons pointedly,
that which must not, can not be.

Morgenstern Gallow Songs

First of all, HEY KNOT!! Long time no see...

Well after years of having disappeared, I've come across your website, and joined for the sake of some good discussions. I really enjoyed this post actually. Something that I agreed with.

For example, I call myself a Christian... but does calling myself one actually make it true? Or is it more through the things that I say and do that demonstrates who I am and what I believe and stand for? We are what we say and do, not what we say. So then my motivation for my actions and words, are the fact that those are what make me who I am. How do I want to be remembered on this earth????

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` *:-.,_,.-:* ` *:-.,_,.-:* ` *:-.,_,.-:* Erin` *:-.,_,-:* ` *:-.,_,.-:* ` *: -., _,.-:* ` *:-.,_,.-:* `

Hey Sug! Nice to see you, again. I won't point out that your very second post was about sex and on the sex forum. Oh damn - I just did point it out, didn't I?

So yeah, what we "do" defines us.

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