Character Is Fate Jack Granath (bio) Character is not fate. It is a long hallway with lots of locked doors on either side. Is it possible to explore what lies behind them? Sure. You can break down a door. You can force or pick a lock. You can simply knock and ask (or plead or demand) to be let in. Maybe someone on the other side will listen to reason. Knowing oneâs self is a good idea. We ought to, since we travel together so often. For that same reason, though, you may shrug off the advice, thinking it officious or unnecessary. If so, Iâll ask you for just one thing: a detailed description of the spot at the very center of your back. (I learned this from a camel.) And anyway, nowadays, the problem is different. The original was aimed at those seeking to know their fate. Did it imply that one should seek oneâs self instead of oneâs fate or that seeking oneâs self would reveal oneâs fate? (Remember that character is fate.) A few thousand years later, we know all about fate (either by dismissing it or by calculating it with a slide rule), so we hardly need to seek it, but the advice may be more helpful than ever, at least for these suddenly wise scientists, discoverers of a resemblance between our selves and our computers. We will need to explain it to them though. Itâs less snappy. It could use some work. But just for starters: Know thyself and know the world and recognize differences in kind. [End Page 23] All the worldâs a stage in what sense? That our actions have meaning in the way an old play does? That we are being watched by an unseen audience, as the old religions teach? Or that boundaries matter, beginnings and endings, the proscenium, the platform, the tent? That without them we kick along in deserts, grope in oceans, let our own stories drift off on the wind? What is a river? You may have stepped in one or two twice, though the water that washed over you was not the same water. We are told that the cells that make up our bodies are not the same cells that made them up before. Does this mean that you cannot be stepped on twice? And what if you step on someone else? Should Sunday morning you go unblamed for your crimes of Saturday night? Physicians should, indeed, heal themselves if they can, but would you refuse advice from a sick physician? Do you think the study of medicine confers indefinite immunity on those who study it? Now priests, on the other hand, are a different story. Man likes to tell other men that he is the measure of all things. Eventually, though, he winds up alone. He may tell the rock that he is the measure of all things. He may tell the measuring stick that he is the measure of all things. They will be OK with that. To say that there is no accounting for tasteâwhich is more or less trueâis not the same as saying we shouldnât argue about it. How unthinkably impoverishedâa world without that kind of ruckus! [End Page 24] Daring to know is another that may be wounded in translation: to know, to judge, to taste. Donât be wishy-washy, says the father to his son. Donât be nice, says the councilor to his prince. Donât see both sides, says the patriot to his fellows. Is it really a great daring, to dare to be part of the problem? Or is there a greater one, in daring to question, to scratch your head, to shrug? What does it mean to know that one knows nothing? Because, after all, even the least promising among us know something. Frequently, though, those least promising donât know that thereâs more to know. Thereâs always more to know. And sometimes the most promising donât know that too. To use moderation in all things sounds like good advice. Youâll find it in a very long book...