Our character isn't defined by the battles we win or lose, but those we dare to fight.
-- Robert Beatty
Is it character?
What is character anyway? Is it content? Is it agency? Some combination of both?
Character addresses what is needed. What is needed may be for the good that enriches life or the things that are wrong that need to be resisted. Character strikes me as the substance within us that a) informs, and b) enables what is needed. It may be represented by the disposition that is consistent with what is good. It may be a response demanded by the moment. It may be strategic; it may be an impulse.
Either way, things seem to require both vision and fortitude to work for or against something that is needed; in other words, these things benefit from something we might call character — something that includes content, constitution, and courage.
Without such elements, we can often confuse things like the means with the end. We can become focused on things like the result (winning & losing), rather than what is needed. Character, on the other hand, will inform and enable something different.
It is, after all, what distinguishes what should be fought for and what shouldn't.
