Character Catalouge

Jason is a mechanic, and one day his flushing system was faulty. Believing himself to be a hands-on person he tried to fixed the toilet by himself. He spent 4 hours rectifying the problem but to no avail, he finally gave in and calling in a professional plumber. The plumber came, spent 5 minutes questioning Jason and another 5 minutes changing a washer and the problem was solved. He asked Jason for $100 for the service, the stunned Jason ask how can he charge $100 for 10mins of work. The plumber looked Jason in the eye and said that he was not paying for his 10 minutes but his 5 years of experience that enabled him to solve the problem in 10mins.

The moral of the story is not how experience acts as a multiplier factor when we interface with Life, but subtle aspect of differentiating experience. Experiences, or as Kant would have it, “representations” and “apprehension” are not equal in value or purpose, contextually speaking. Our different perspectives, opportunities, cultural baggage etc, etc all add to the quantity, but more importantly the quality of our experiences. However, due to a myriad of reasons such as education, exposure, peer influences our experiences might not be optimally ordered to aid us most efficiently.

Few of us know what we want, but many of us know what we don’t want. I personally believe humans to be pain avoiding creatures, as opposed pleasure seeking creatures. Think about it, would you run faster at the end leg of a marathon for the promise of an ice cream or give up the ice cream and walk hence instantly stopping the pain in your legs? Hence based on that thread of reasoning, I believe we keep a much better organized catalogue of things we don’t like as compare to things we like. The twist here is how do we know what we don’t want if we have never experienced it, part of it confluxes with the eternal tussle between youths and their elders, the weathered old man and the wild young boy. But… I digress, back to the issue of the catalogue, and I shall contextualize it against the backdrop of social relations since everyone can relate to relations with people.

As we undergo the test of time, we collect and compile the results and what we all inadvertently end up with is a robust catalogue of characteristics we are not comfortable with or even down right despise. A matrix would be formed in our heads, that is to say that one might tolerate a particular characteristic in a friend but not in one’s spouse for example, this “Character Catalogue” is multi-dimensional. This character catalogue is unfortunately, framed negatively. That is to say, we would be able to list more characteristics we detest as compare to those we find enduring. Hence the majority of us are fault finders, stereotypical, judgemental or even blatantly discriminating.

This is a self defence mechanism to protect us from pain and hurt, rather than the procurement of pleasure. Which is why I reckon people who have a more robust Character Catalogues would be more discerning when it comes to establishing relationships. Why we have 10years or more friendships with people whom we might not even exchange more than pleasantries to if we were to be introduced to them today, I feel this is the reason. When our Catalogue was short, non-exhaustive, we were more accommodating, less judgemental, we love freely, share our moments easily, our relationships would be more textured and varied, we accepted them even when they were not perfect and over time they have proven themselves to be stellar friends. But with a black catalogue, our subconscious steer us away from imaginary “potential” hurt and pain, and before we know it we are surrounded by people who are almost exactly like ourselves. Deceived by self constructed social proof, we falsely feel secure in our similarities and become stubborn (“that’s me or that’s how I do things”) in our ways.

Imagine if we were to frame and channel this catalogue positively. Seek out the good in people, accept that they are not perfect, just like we ourselves are not perfect. Have a list of positive qualities we hope to achieve and surround ourselves with people who are imbued with such positive characteristics. By doing this we create the pain of being surrounded by people who are better than ourselves, and being pain avoiding, our sub-consciousness would spur better ourselves. Positive pain, it’s the kind of pain in your legs after a good training session, the kind of pain which tells us that we are growing and becoming stronger.

Jason and the plumber had different skill sets, different repertoire. But one set was more relevant than the other when it came to fixing the plumbing. Each one of us have our own character catalogues, but some catalogues are more robust, better consolidated, and more relevant to leading a wholesome, enriching and all rounded life. Generate the positive pain today. ;)