Giving Style to One's Character (Journal Post)

[From March 10, 2008]

“To ‘give style’ to one’s character—a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye” (GS 290). One is always being made; the question is how one will participate in that, how one will make oneself. Qualities are constantly being integrated and disposed of, the past reappropriated and reinterpreted. One is nothing more or other than the sum of one’s affects; every event that has ever occurred to one (and therefore every event) shapes who one is as an individual. However, not every event will affect one with the same weight or importance, and this is where one can engage in the art of creating oneself, of giving style to one’s character.

Eternal Return CIV {There is no such thing as Sin}