Character

“Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.”

          –     Yousuf Karsh (1908 – 2002), as quoted by one of my favorite bloggers, Tim Ferriss

Change and pain, as we’ve often discussed, are inevitable. Misery, on the other hand, is optional.

What’s the link between change and pain?

Human nature is to resist change.  As we learned from Dr. Graff, “change will only occur when the fear of change is overcome by the pain of remaining the same.”

Ok, so what does this have to do with character?

Character isn’t developed in victory or on mountain tops.  Character is built and developed in pain; valleys, failure and the blisters and fatigue that come from relentless effort to improve, or from a forced instinct to survive.

I learned to develop photographs in the darkroom of The Troy Banner at Fairfield High School in 1978 and in the Journalism lab at The University of Iowa in 1980 and the student newspaper at Northeast Missouri State University from 1981 – 1984.  I didn’t learn to develop character, and whatever character I have — whatever character we have — is developed by getting through the darkness and from experiencing pain.

Character building isn’t a “one-and-done” event…

Our character is still being built.  For me, it may have started in 1971, when I was passed over for a starting pitching gig on the Little League All-Star team.  It may have evolved at a childhood buddy’s funeral in 1977, or in delivering eulogies for friends and family members since 1985.  It cemented itself via disappointment in 2013, challenges in 2016 and 2017 and an abject betrayal in 2018.  Some of it grew from a broken neck in 2009 and, God willing it continues to develop with each trip through the darkness, bringing us more in touch with who we are and, ideally, who we want to be.

Karsh’s greatest photograph has an element of darkness to it, and its subject does, too.  It was taken and then developed in a time when the darkroom was the place where great photographs came to be, and its subject, not ironically, grew into a man of great character in darkness that we can’t imagine.

It’s not easy to embrace the darkness.  Imagining and striving for what comes on the other side is what builds character, and makes the passage worthwhile.