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The Call of Character: Living a Life Worth Living
Should we feel inadequate for failing to be healthy, balanced, and well-adjusted? Is such an existential equilibrium realistic or even desirable? Condemning our cultural obsession with cheerfulness and "positive thinking," Mari Ruti calls for a resurrection of character that honors our more eccentric frequencies, arguing that sometimes the most tormented and anxiety-ridden life can also be the most rewarding.
Ruti critiques our current search for personal meaning and the pragmatic attempt to normalize human beings' unruly and idiosyncratic natures. Exposing the tragic banality of a happy life commonly lived, she instead emphasizes the advantages of a lopsided life rich in passion and fortitude. Ruti shows what counts is not our ability to evade existential uncertainty but to meet adversity in such a way that we do not become irrevocably broken. We are in danger of losing the capacity to cope with complexity, ambiguity, melancholia, disorientation, and disappointment, leaving us feeling less "real," less connected, and unable to metabolize a full range of emotions. Heeding the call of our character may mean acknowledging the marginalized, chaotic aspects of our being, for they carry a great deal of creative energy. Ruti shows it is precisely this energy that makes us inimitable and irreplaceable.
Ruti critiques our current search for personal meaning and the pragmatic attempt to normalize human beings' unruly and idiosyncratic natures. Exposing the tragic banality of a happy life commonly lived, she instead emphasizes the advantages of a lopsided life rich in passion and fortitude. Ruti shows what counts is not our ability to evade existential uncertainty but to meet adversity in such a way that we do not become irrevocably broken. We are in danger of losing the capacity to cope with complexity, ambiguity, melancholia, disorientation, and disappointment, leaving us feeling less "real," less connected, and unable to metabolize a full range of emotions. Heeding the call of our character may mean acknowledging the marginalized, chaotic aspects of our being, for they carry a great deal of creative energy. Ruti shows it is precisely this energy that makes us inimitable and irreplaceable.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published November 12, 2013
48 people are currently reading
753 people want to read
About the author
Mari Ruti
48 books134 followersMari Ruti is Distinguished Professor of critical theory and of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. She is an interdisciplinary scholar within the theoretical humanities working at the intersection of contemporary theory, continental philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies, trauma theory, posthumanist ethics, and gender and sexuality studies.
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January 17, 2019
“The moment we desire, we bring risk into our lives.” — Mari Ruti
Today, many are in thrall to the sedating effect of affluence, many others are pinned down by the paralyzing impact of economic insecurity. Above all we want to belong, we want to be seen as fitting in. As a result, while at the surface our society celebrates diversity and idiosyncracy, the reality is that the vast majority of us choose to keep their heads down. We trade in our vitality for the precarious reassurance of career, family, and a wide variety of commoditized passions and quasi-choices.
In this book Mari Ruti pleads for a slightly more courageous life in which we heed the call of our idiosyncratic desires, and accept the fact that following this path entails inevitable friction, pain and existential bewilderment. Ruti captures the book essential message as follows: “The key to the good life is not the ability to avoid pain, but rather the capacity to metabolize it so that we become capable of a more rewarding relationship to ourselves. This capability, in turn, allows us to develop a more rewarding relationship to others, including those we relate to intimately.”
Ruti rigorously builds her argument, relying on key insights from thinkers such as Nietzsche, Lacan, Freud and Badiou. First she shows that our subjectivity is not monolithic and cast in stone. Instead, it is fluid and malleable, and at any point in life we are at liberty to reinvent ourselves. “The self is an open system that is always in the process of becoming”. She proceeds with the assertion that a feeling of existential deprivation rather than equanimity is what makes us uniquely human. Acknowledging that perennial sense of 'being unfinished’ is not an impediment to an inspired life, but rather its precondition.
There are, however, powerful forces that undermine our resilience. Much of our defensive, desire-denying routines are rooted in our subconscious. We tend to repeat blueprints of behavior that are not good for us and much of that goes back to our formative traumas in our process of socialization. Understanding how these 'repetition compulsions’ (Freud) work is a first step to counter their influence. But we may need professional help to learn to outwit these patterns and to appreciate that reinterpreting a painful experience from our past is constructive influence on our character. “The best we can do with the pain of the past is to turn it into a resource for living in the present.”
Ruti holds that following our desire does not amount to a show of narcissism but leads to an ethically commendable way of life may strike us a incongruous. Because we work from the assumption that following ’the call of our character’ will inevitably lead to conflict with those dear to us - parents, partners, friends, colleagues. They project their expectations and anxieties on us and we are loath to disappoint them. And yet risking these disappointments may be the more prudent and charitable course in the long run. First because ignoring our desire may lead to a violent breakup at a later stage in life. Second, because it is from the fullness of a inspired life that we are most capable of generously sharing with our dearest and of contributing to the community at large. And, vice versa, the more open and intimate our relationships, the more potential they offer for allowing us to make contact with and integrate disclaimed aspects of ourselves. That being said, there are moments in life when we have to muster the courage to step out of relationships that do not reinforce our capacity to reinvent ourselves. The ethics of relationality is not predicated on honouring stability but on wanting to risk an encounter with what is most uncanny and opaque about the other. Finally, when we follow the call of our character we also resist the circuits of surveillance and controls designed to keep us in step as docile 'human resources’. Claiming our space is always subversive but it is also a matter of personal dignity.
Ruti brings the tension between our social persona and our character into sharper relief by invoking the notion of 'the event', as discussed by Alain Badiou. The event is a discontinuity, an upsurge of energy and meaning that overtakes us. This can be the sudden emergence of a calling, the spark that fires a creative process, the irresistible attraction to another human being. We have to risk to answer that call. But how do we know that we are not following the lure of mere illusion? And how to heed that call without gambling away our social capital? There is no recipe. It is a matter of trial-and-error, perhaps supported by mentors, and in delicate concert with those dear to us.
I find this a very valuable book because it helps me to articulate what a ‘systemic way of being in the world’ might be. It’s not a self-help manual and it offers no soothing messages. Mindfulness, equanimity and stability only get us so far. Balancing our character with our social persona will always be a delicate process, fraught with risk and anxiety, but offering a tenuous path to personal dignity, purposeful presence, intense relationality and a heightened awareness of the delicacy and beauty of life.
Ruti’s ‘Call of Character' shows kinship with Judi Marshall's ‘Living Life as Inquiry’ but it compares unfavorably with the latter in terms of reading experience. Mari Ruti shows commendable skill in building a rigorous argument and in translating complex ideas in relatively understandable prose. But her style is somewhat grating. It’s not badly written by any means but there is a certain monotony and inflexibility of rhythm that tires after a while. Also, I’m convinced that the book would gain in cogency by making it shorter and tighter. No matter, it's going to be a essential piece in my personal survival kit.
Today, many are in thrall to the sedating effect of affluence, many others are pinned down by the paralyzing impact of economic insecurity. Above all we want to belong, we want to be seen as fitting in. As a result, while at the surface our society celebrates diversity and idiosyncracy, the reality is that the vast majority of us choose to keep their heads down. We trade in our vitality for the precarious reassurance of career, family, and a wide variety of commoditized passions and quasi-choices.
In this book Mari Ruti pleads for a slightly more courageous life in which we heed the call of our idiosyncratic desires, and accept the fact that following this path entails inevitable friction, pain and existential bewilderment. Ruti captures the book essential message as follows: “The key to the good life is not the ability to avoid pain, but rather the capacity to metabolize it so that we become capable of a more rewarding relationship to ourselves. This capability, in turn, allows us to develop a more rewarding relationship to others, including those we relate to intimately.”
Ruti rigorously builds her argument, relying on key insights from thinkers such as Nietzsche, Lacan, Freud and Badiou. First she shows that our subjectivity is not monolithic and cast in stone. Instead, it is fluid and malleable, and at any point in life we are at liberty to reinvent ourselves. “The self is an open system that is always in the process of becoming”. She proceeds with the assertion that a feeling of existential deprivation rather than equanimity is what makes us uniquely human. Acknowledging that perennial sense of 'being unfinished’ is not an impediment to an inspired life, but rather its precondition.
There are, however, powerful forces that undermine our resilience. Much of our defensive, desire-denying routines are rooted in our subconscious. We tend to repeat blueprints of behavior that are not good for us and much of that goes back to our formative traumas in our process of socialization. Understanding how these 'repetition compulsions’ (Freud) work is a first step to counter their influence. But we may need professional help to learn to outwit these patterns and to appreciate that reinterpreting a painful experience from our past is constructive influence on our character. “The best we can do with the pain of the past is to turn it into a resource for living in the present.”
Ruti holds that following our desire does not amount to a show of narcissism but leads to an ethically commendable way of life may strike us a incongruous. Because we work from the assumption that following ’the call of our character’ will inevitably lead to conflict with those dear to us - parents, partners, friends, colleagues. They project their expectations and anxieties on us and we are loath to disappoint them. And yet risking these disappointments may be the more prudent and charitable course in the long run. First because ignoring our desire may lead to a violent breakup at a later stage in life. Second, because it is from the fullness of a inspired life that we are most capable of generously sharing with our dearest and of contributing to the community at large. And, vice versa, the more open and intimate our relationships, the more potential they offer for allowing us to make contact with and integrate disclaimed aspects of ourselves. That being said, there are moments in life when we have to muster the courage to step out of relationships that do not reinforce our capacity to reinvent ourselves. The ethics of relationality is not predicated on honouring stability but on wanting to risk an encounter with what is most uncanny and opaque about the other. Finally, when we follow the call of our character we also resist the circuits of surveillance and controls designed to keep us in step as docile 'human resources’. Claiming our space is always subversive but it is also a matter of personal dignity.
Ruti brings the tension between our social persona and our character into sharper relief by invoking the notion of 'the event', as discussed by Alain Badiou. The event is a discontinuity, an upsurge of energy and meaning that overtakes us. This can be the sudden emergence of a calling, the spark that fires a creative process, the irresistible attraction to another human being. We have to risk to answer that call. But how do we know that we are not following the lure of mere illusion? And how to heed that call without gambling away our social capital? There is no recipe. It is a matter of trial-and-error, perhaps supported by mentors, and in delicate concert with those dear to us.
I find this a very valuable book because it helps me to articulate what a ‘systemic way of being in the world’ might be. It’s not a self-help manual and it offers no soothing messages. Mindfulness, equanimity and stability only get us so far. Balancing our character with our social persona will always be a delicate process, fraught with risk and anxiety, but offering a tenuous path to personal dignity, purposeful presence, intense relationality and a heightened awareness of the delicacy and beauty of life.
Ruti’s ‘Call of Character' shows kinship with Judi Marshall's ‘Living Life as Inquiry’ but it compares unfavorably with the latter in terms of reading experience. Mari Ruti shows commendable skill in building a rigorous argument and in translating complex ideas in relatively understandable prose. But her style is somewhat grating. It’s not badly written by any means but there is a certain monotony and inflexibility of rhythm that tires after a while. Also, I’m convinced that the book would gain in cogency by making it shorter and tighter. No matter, it's going to be a essential piece in my personal survival kit.
February 2, 2024
Since I am not a religious person by any means, I carry an open wound that begs to be filled. This book is better than the Bible and I’ve tried reading the latter on a few occasions. Before trying to imperfectly express my feelings for this book, it is worth noting that Ruti is a special person to me. She was, and to this day remains, my most precious mentor for she changed the way I view my writing practice, my inherent worth, and my calling in life. She read in me something I had fully eclipsed. She saved me in ways she will never know.
In The Call of Character, Ruti acknowledges the origin of our collective nihilism and paradoxically obsessive pursuit of chronic optimism, only to dismantle both of these oppressive structures and replace them with the concept of an erotics of being. When you feel self-hating and disillusioned with your path, it is an urgent time to lean into your impulses and break free. It is radical to hear this: medicating anxieties or subduing them can be an important thing for many of us, but oftentimes we must also learn to accept our anxieties and surrender ourselves to them because they serve as guiding lights to our true character. They allow us to hear the summons of our lives.
It’s also about perseverance. You need to continuously love your fate, take the traumas you have experienced, and self-fashion a life that you want to live, of course to some degree, within the confines of your positionality. It is about infusing the everyday with special radiance, bending toward love and creativity as the ultimate expressions of our souls, and discovering the divine in the imperfect crevices of the other (the other person, the mundane ritual, etc.).
Wake up. I need to hear this myself. I need to hear it over and over again. Have the courage to be yourself and break free from the conventions that stiffen you. Sometimes you must consider leaving the life of emotional safety you’ve built. The safe decisions, albeit affording a sense of steadiness, can eventually make you feel buried six feet under before you’re even dead (if these safe decisions were made out of fear as opposed to personal conviction). Cultivating your own set of ideals and listening to what calls YOU, specifically, to continue living is your key to meaning.
I also appreciated hearing that love doesn’t need to be perfectly healthy all the time and that solitude is not some desperate state of being. When we do find someone who rouses in us a dormant aspect of the divine, a particular indefinable quality, we should lean in. Searching for the idiosyncrasies in the other, finding the holy in the imperfect, and abandoning ourselves to the spontaneous-chaotic-euphoric eruption of love, even if short-lived, is one of the purest ways to affirm our capacity for life. In other words, heartbreak is the best thing that can happen to us. Dare to experience it over and over again. It is only through repeated heartbreak—whether losing a loved one, saying goodbye to a lover, or failing at our aspirations—that we come closer to a sense of self, again and again.
Although I know no one is reading at this point (if you are, why are you?), Ruti also stresses self-responsibility. The ultimate form of integrity is accepting responsibility for the ways we injure others even if we didn’t intend injury, even if we were abused ourselves, even if our hurt emerged from unconscious pools we’ve never waded. So when we inevitably injure others (for to live is to miscommunicate, to repeat the past through compulsion), we gain a stronger sense of self by acknowledging our moral shortcomings. It is only through moral responsibility to those we love that we see ourselves more fully realized.
So, it’s not really “carpe diem,” no. It’s let yourself be submerged in the whirlpool and the intensity of being alive, the good and the bad. Don’t ignore your impulses and when something in the ordinary day seizes you, take the time to look at it. By finding the magic potentiality in the everyday, we allow ourselves to worship the sublime and inimitable qualities of other people/places/animal companions/objects. This is the source of our souls’ plenitude. Also, accepting our own cringe. I accept!
In The Call of Character, Ruti acknowledges the origin of our collective nihilism and paradoxically obsessive pursuit of chronic optimism, only to dismantle both of these oppressive structures and replace them with the concept of an erotics of being. When you feel self-hating and disillusioned with your path, it is an urgent time to lean into your impulses and break free. It is radical to hear this: medicating anxieties or subduing them can be an important thing for many of us, but oftentimes we must also learn to accept our anxieties and surrender ourselves to them because they serve as guiding lights to our true character. They allow us to hear the summons of our lives.
It’s also about perseverance. You need to continuously love your fate, take the traumas you have experienced, and self-fashion a life that you want to live, of course to some degree, within the confines of your positionality. It is about infusing the everyday with special radiance, bending toward love and creativity as the ultimate expressions of our souls, and discovering the divine in the imperfect crevices of the other (the other person, the mundane ritual, etc.).
Wake up. I need to hear this myself. I need to hear it over and over again. Have the courage to be yourself and break free from the conventions that stiffen you. Sometimes you must consider leaving the life of emotional safety you’ve built. The safe decisions, albeit affording a sense of steadiness, can eventually make you feel buried six feet under before you’re even dead (if these safe decisions were made out of fear as opposed to personal conviction). Cultivating your own set of ideals and listening to what calls YOU, specifically, to continue living is your key to meaning.
I also appreciated hearing that love doesn’t need to be perfectly healthy all the time and that solitude is not some desperate state of being. When we do find someone who rouses in us a dormant aspect of the divine, a particular indefinable quality, we should lean in. Searching for the idiosyncrasies in the other, finding the holy in the imperfect, and abandoning ourselves to the spontaneous-chaotic-euphoric eruption of love, even if short-lived, is one of the purest ways to affirm our capacity for life. In other words, heartbreak is the best thing that can happen to us. Dare to experience it over and over again. It is only through repeated heartbreak—whether losing a loved one, saying goodbye to a lover, or failing at our aspirations—that we come closer to a sense of self, again and again.
Although I know no one is reading at this point (if you are, why are you?), Ruti also stresses self-responsibility. The ultimate form of integrity is accepting responsibility for the ways we injure others even if we didn’t intend injury, even if we were abused ourselves, even if our hurt emerged from unconscious pools we’ve never waded. So when we inevitably injure others (for to live is to miscommunicate, to repeat the past through compulsion), we gain a stronger sense of self by acknowledging our moral shortcomings. It is only through moral responsibility to those we love that we see ourselves more fully realized.
So, it’s not really “carpe diem,” no. It’s let yourself be submerged in the whirlpool and the intensity of being alive, the good and the bad. Don’t ignore your impulses and when something in the ordinary day seizes you, take the time to look at it. By finding the magic potentiality in the everyday, we allow ourselves to worship the sublime and inimitable qualities of other people/places/animal companions/objects. This is the source of our souls’ plenitude. Also, accepting our own cringe. I accept!
October 10, 2014
This book is a great critique not only on our western culture but the medical model and how it has overwhelmed good psychology with a need to fix. Loving my symptoms is completely antithetical to the modern belief of health, but it is the only thing that can bring us to a new place. Exploring and embracing our madness is what redeems it and makes it beautiful. The title of this book made it sound like a self-help book, but the help in this book comes from deep in the soul, not cosmetic change.
September 25, 2022
Relying on Lacanian psychoanalysis, Mari Ruti just goes ahead and wipes the floor with all the "live-in-the-now-and-be-happy" self-help nonsense out there. The critique of our obsession with a balanced life & peaceful mind is very refreshing. Life is psychologically too complicated for oversimplified answers. Too bad the kind of intricate answers presented here are harder to sell.
July 28, 2024
According to Nietzsche, we all are invited to become the poets of our lives, individuals who "give themselves laws" (dictate their own life direction) within the parameters of their particular fate. Even the so-called mistakes we make - the wrong turns we take - can become material for our acts of self-fashioning. In this sense, there is nothing about our lives that is "just" a blunder or a misstep, for such failings are an essential part of our destiny. And sometimes they may even work in our favor, provided we have the patience to wait for their message to unfurl. It may, for example, turn out that something that causes us suffering will eventually grow into a nugget of wisdom that guides us to a valuable course adjustment...
Humans are distinctive among the creatures of the world in that we do not need to reconcile ourselves to any one incarnation of ourselves but have the capacity to reinvent ourselves an almost infinite number of times. We have the ability to take a step back and consider the entirety of our existence, including its purpose, as well as to revise whatever is not working about it. Best of all, we can do so repeatedly so that if our first attempt to improve the fit between our desires and our daily reality does not work, we can try again. We are historical beings in that we cannot have a sense of self without having a sense or our past, we are not even obliged to accept this past "as it is" but possess the capacity to rewrite it from the perspective of the present...
Our sense of inadequacy is primordial - and thus impossible to banish - because it is the price we pay for socialization. Prior to socialization, we do not yet understand ourselves as separate entities, which in practice means that we are the world and the world is us. Socialization shatters this illusion at least on two different levels. On a literal level, it introduces a wedge - an insurmountable obstacle - between us and the maternal body (or the body of the one who cares for us). On a more figurative level, it delivers a huge blow to our narcissistic sense of being the navel of the universe. In so doing, it divests us of our infantile fantasy of wholeness and uncomplicated belonging, generating an unquenchable longing for a state of plenitude that we imagine we have somehow been unfairly robbed of: a lost paradise we can never recover but that we spend the rest of our lives pursuing. The fact that we never possessed this paradise in the first place, that we were never completely whole and at ease to begin with, does not in the least diminish our resolve to recover it. Lacan designates this lost paradise as "the Thing", indicating by the capital T that it is not an ordinary fantasy object, but a very special Thing of incomparable worth; it is the Thing that our deepest desires are made of.
I've been in a rut lately. I don't want to get to biographical in a book review, but put simply, I find myself running into the same problems every few years. I'm still struggling against the same character flaws, still improving on the same mistakes, still finding the same anxieties crawling back to the surface. It made me feel as if I never change, this is who I am, imperfect and broken at the core.
I brought this up in therapy and my therapist suggests this book. A big selling point is "self-help that's anti-'self-help'", Mari Ruti makes it clear that's her goal in the preface of the book. There's this unnerving pattern in "self-help" literature of just getting people to make themselves more "productive", books that just want you to be the best at what you're doing. Ruti's goal is to show this deep unsatisfactory feeling may have roots in what it means to be human at all. All of her writing is based in philosophical research, as I show in the quote, going back to Nietzsche, Lacan, and others, so it may not be for everyone. If I were to put her thesis together as simply as possible and what I got from the book, I'd say that anxiety and meaning are deeply intertwined concepts. We shouldn't try to eliminate anxiety, oftentimes its a good sub-conscious signal of some desire that we aren't fulfilling. In fact, we should enter some sort of "dialogue" with our anxieties, in order to build our character. Character has a sort of nebulous meaning in the book, but I'd probably describe it as an "idealized identity", the us that we strive to be.
One of the thorniest things about life are those moments when the object we have settled on does not alleviate our lack but instead adds sting to it by disillusioning us... When a fresh lack meets the original lack we are trying to redress, we can be mortified beyond expression. In such instances, there is too much of a lack, as it were, so that we feel defeated by the sheer vastness of our deprivation. Our wound is so gaping that we cannot even begin to imagine how we might fill it. This is one way we arrive at depression. Alternatively, we may succumb to addictions, using work, sex, food, drugs, alcohol, or even self-inflicted pain as a coping mechanism. We operate under the erroneous impression that the more work, sex, food, or anything else we cram into the void within our being, the fuller we will feel. And our disappointment about the outcome only reinforces the cycle, so that the less satisfied we feel, the more relentlessly we seek satisfaction. This is one reason addictions are so difficult to break. The only way out of the rotation is to be willing to tolerate the pain that arises from lack, and many of us are not that strong. Or at least we are not always that strong.
This particular passage strikes me. How many people do we know that get everything it seems they were striving for, and it doesn't seem to fill the void? The thing that we thought we wanted doesn't stop the desire. One of the things Ruti talks about is how elusive that thing we desire really is. Our desires get muddled in cultural influence, familial influence, social influence. We are pushing for something because of other factors, not an internal one. The liberating, albeit terrifying, conclusion that the book comes to is that the true way to handle this "lack" is by accepting it. Ruti compares the striving to fill the lack to creative pursuits, as this is where the fruits of the desire can be easily seen.
Many creative or otherwise inspired pursuits demand the fortitude of persevering even when we feel fatigued, distracted, discouraged, or disillusioned, and even when we momentarily lose sight of the bigger picture. This kind of fortitude is easier to sustain over time if we recognize that filaments of inspiration tend to be pleated into the substance of the mundane in the same way as deposits of gold are pleated into sediments of rock and sand. The only way to access such filaments is to immerse ourselves within the mundane substance that makes up the bulk of the world (or of the pursuit in question)... Those creators who are able to convert their visions into concrete artifacts understand this, which is why they do not let their periods of despondency undermine their projects but trust that such periods will in the end open to something that redeems the struggle; they trust that the mundane will, through unremitting effort, deliver the kind of transcendent insight that makes the lives worth living... According to this view, creation is a delicate blend of self-surrender and an almost cruel degree of perseverance. The art of living I have been promoting can be said to require similar combinations of self-surrender and discipline.
I think I've gained a good amount of perspective from this book, particularly the reframing of anxiety and the idea of grinding toward a genuinely transcendent moment. It's a good book for people who find themselves in a listless state recently, or maybe are over-critical of their own life path. It's genuinely lit a fire under my ass to keep an eye out and take advantage of opportunities more often.
Humans are distinctive among the creatures of the world in that we do not need to reconcile ourselves to any one incarnation of ourselves but have the capacity to reinvent ourselves an almost infinite number of times. We have the ability to take a step back and consider the entirety of our existence, including its purpose, as well as to revise whatever is not working about it. Best of all, we can do so repeatedly so that if our first attempt to improve the fit between our desires and our daily reality does not work, we can try again. We are historical beings in that we cannot have a sense of self without having a sense or our past, we are not even obliged to accept this past "as it is" but possess the capacity to rewrite it from the perspective of the present...
Our sense of inadequacy is primordial - and thus impossible to banish - because it is the price we pay for socialization. Prior to socialization, we do not yet understand ourselves as separate entities, which in practice means that we are the world and the world is us. Socialization shatters this illusion at least on two different levels. On a literal level, it introduces a wedge - an insurmountable obstacle - between us and the maternal body (or the body of the one who cares for us). On a more figurative level, it delivers a huge blow to our narcissistic sense of being the navel of the universe. In so doing, it divests us of our infantile fantasy of wholeness and uncomplicated belonging, generating an unquenchable longing for a state of plenitude that we imagine we have somehow been unfairly robbed of: a lost paradise we can never recover but that we spend the rest of our lives pursuing. The fact that we never possessed this paradise in the first place, that we were never completely whole and at ease to begin with, does not in the least diminish our resolve to recover it. Lacan designates this lost paradise as "the Thing", indicating by the capital T that it is not an ordinary fantasy object, but a very special Thing of incomparable worth; it is the Thing that our deepest desires are made of.
I've been in a rut lately. I don't want to get to biographical in a book review, but put simply, I find myself running into the same problems every few years. I'm still struggling against the same character flaws, still improving on the same mistakes, still finding the same anxieties crawling back to the surface. It made me feel as if I never change, this is who I am, imperfect and broken at the core.
I brought this up in therapy and my therapist suggests this book. A big selling point is "self-help that's anti-'self-help'", Mari Ruti makes it clear that's her goal in the preface of the book. There's this unnerving pattern in "self-help" literature of just getting people to make themselves more "productive", books that just want you to be the best at what you're doing. Ruti's goal is to show this deep unsatisfactory feeling may have roots in what it means to be human at all. All of her writing is based in philosophical research, as I show in the quote, going back to Nietzsche, Lacan, and others, so it may not be for everyone. If I were to put her thesis together as simply as possible and what I got from the book, I'd say that anxiety and meaning are deeply intertwined concepts. We shouldn't try to eliminate anxiety, oftentimes its a good sub-conscious signal of some desire that we aren't fulfilling. In fact, we should enter some sort of "dialogue" with our anxieties, in order to build our character. Character has a sort of nebulous meaning in the book, but I'd probably describe it as an "idealized identity", the us that we strive to be.
One of the thorniest things about life are those moments when the object we have settled on does not alleviate our lack but instead adds sting to it by disillusioning us... When a fresh lack meets the original lack we are trying to redress, we can be mortified beyond expression. In such instances, there is too much of a lack, as it were, so that we feel defeated by the sheer vastness of our deprivation. Our wound is so gaping that we cannot even begin to imagine how we might fill it. This is one way we arrive at depression. Alternatively, we may succumb to addictions, using work, sex, food, drugs, alcohol, or even self-inflicted pain as a coping mechanism. We operate under the erroneous impression that the more work, sex, food, or anything else we cram into the void within our being, the fuller we will feel. And our disappointment about the outcome only reinforces the cycle, so that the less satisfied we feel, the more relentlessly we seek satisfaction. This is one reason addictions are so difficult to break. The only way out of the rotation is to be willing to tolerate the pain that arises from lack, and many of us are not that strong. Or at least we are not always that strong.
This particular passage strikes me. How many people do we know that get everything it seems they were striving for, and it doesn't seem to fill the void? The thing that we thought we wanted doesn't stop the desire. One of the things Ruti talks about is how elusive that thing we desire really is. Our desires get muddled in cultural influence, familial influence, social influence. We are pushing for something because of other factors, not an internal one. The liberating, albeit terrifying, conclusion that the book comes to is that the true way to handle this "lack" is by accepting it. Ruti compares the striving to fill the lack to creative pursuits, as this is where the fruits of the desire can be easily seen.
Many creative or otherwise inspired pursuits demand the fortitude of persevering even when we feel fatigued, distracted, discouraged, or disillusioned, and even when we momentarily lose sight of the bigger picture. This kind of fortitude is easier to sustain over time if we recognize that filaments of inspiration tend to be pleated into the substance of the mundane in the same way as deposits of gold are pleated into sediments of rock and sand. The only way to access such filaments is to immerse ourselves within the mundane substance that makes up the bulk of the world (or of the pursuit in question)... Those creators who are able to convert their visions into concrete artifacts understand this, which is why they do not let their periods of despondency undermine their projects but trust that such periods will in the end open to something that redeems the struggle; they trust that the mundane will, through unremitting effort, deliver the kind of transcendent insight that makes the lives worth living... According to this view, creation is a delicate blend of self-surrender and an almost cruel degree of perseverance. The art of living I have been promoting can be said to require similar combinations of self-surrender and discipline.
I think I've gained a good amount of perspective from this book, particularly the reframing of anxiety and the idea of grinding toward a genuinely transcendent moment. It's a good book for people who find themselves in a listless state recently, or maybe are over-critical of their own life path. It's genuinely lit a fire under my ass to keep an eye out and take advantage of opportunities more often.
April 24, 2022
I thought I had already left a view to this book, it’s the 3rd time I’ve read this and I guess like the three moments of the drive, the third time is when I’ll speak to it.
Ruti offers readers of this book to find the call of their character. The narrative of mainstream society and the forms of helping discourse that is connected to it, suggest that we need to find our authentic selves, and that by doing so we will live authentic lives. Yet as Ruti suggests, this is a fallacy of our conception of identity. Due to the fact that we are split subjects, split between subject/object, split by the signifier, we can never become whole “authentic” versions of ourselves because it is against our unnatural nature of being human. The split within us creates a lack. And the way in which we come to fulfill this lack is what creating a character would be: the art of self fashioning as Nietzsche suggests amor fati, or Kristeva suggests as the poetic stance on abjection.
But what do we need to do to become individuals capable of self fashioning? First we need to confront the multiple ways in which we sabotage ourselves through repetition compulsion. Just because we have had traumatic upbringings and have learned to enjoy ourselves in particular ways, related to what Ruti calls the Thing, does not mean we are not responsible for our unconscious. It’s the opposite, when you become aware of the unconscious you must become responsible. We are also not completely independent either, we are dependent on others so if our unconscious hurts others we are still responsible. And finally we need to be aware of a new universal type of relationality, that not all traumas are equal…
Finally, since we know we are unconscious repetitve things that are searching for a fantasmatic Thing, then how do we actually hear the echo of it and find our calling. Through self-surrender. We surrender to the our desire, we to the event, recognizing that anxiety, rather than being something we cover up and try to oppress is our calling, and we become poets of our lives by living in an erotics of being.
Ruti offers readers of this book to find the call of their character. The narrative of mainstream society and the forms of helping discourse that is connected to it, suggest that we need to find our authentic selves, and that by doing so we will live authentic lives. Yet as Ruti suggests, this is a fallacy of our conception of identity. Due to the fact that we are split subjects, split between subject/object, split by the signifier, we can never become whole “authentic” versions of ourselves because it is against our unnatural nature of being human. The split within us creates a lack. And the way in which we come to fulfill this lack is what creating a character would be: the art of self fashioning as Nietzsche suggests amor fati, or Kristeva suggests as the poetic stance on abjection.
But what do we need to do to become individuals capable of self fashioning? First we need to confront the multiple ways in which we sabotage ourselves through repetition compulsion. Just because we have had traumatic upbringings and have learned to enjoy ourselves in particular ways, related to what Ruti calls the Thing, does not mean we are not responsible for our unconscious. It’s the opposite, when you become aware of the unconscious you must become responsible. We are also not completely independent either, we are dependent on others so if our unconscious hurts others we are still responsible. And finally we need to be aware of a new universal type of relationality, that not all traumas are equal…
Finally, since we know we are unconscious repetitve things that are searching for a fantasmatic Thing, then how do we actually hear the echo of it and find our calling. Through self-surrender. We surrender to the our desire, we to the event, recognizing that anxiety, rather than being something we cover up and try to oppress is our calling, and we become poets of our lives by living in an erotics of being.
June 7, 2019
Self-help through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. So useful self-help for a change.
November 24, 2025
This might be the book that gets me to read psychoanalysis (if this one didn’t count). So readable for anyone with any schooling and you can tell Ruti has passion for the subject, even in an academic-ish book.
Though I’m not sure if I buy the whole developmental story behind the source of our lack, I think it’s undoubtably true that we feel the lack Ruti describes and this gets the idea off the ground for me and helps me accept those ideas downstream of the idea of a fundamental lack.
Also a really nice change of perspective after years of Greek and theological approaches to questions of living a good life, not to mention the current lit on “well-being” in moral psych.
Not sure how I feel about drive psychology, but I think I like the ideas from it more than I initially might’ve thought.
Though I’m not sure if I buy the whole developmental story behind the source of our lack, I think it’s undoubtably true that we feel the lack Ruti describes and this gets the idea off the ground for me and helps me accept those ideas downstream of the idea of a fundamental lack.
Also a really nice change of perspective after years of Greek and theological approaches to questions of living a good life, not to mention the current lit on “well-being” in moral psych.
Not sure how I feel about drive psychology, but I think I like the ideas from it more than I initially might’ve thought.
July 9, 2025
My film advisor Hyon Joo Yoo gifted me this book first semester junior year after I had been having a hard time. And I only allowed myself to read it once I felt as though I was back up on my feet because it’s Mari Ruti which means lots of theory. It was a tough read but I enjoyed the challenge and it’s just one of those books that make you look at the world again but closer. Lots of good quotes/lessons in here.
June 11, 2024
An excellent primer on finding one’s authentic way in a world striving to mould us in one standard pattern.
April 5, 2024
to become who we are meant to be.
*****
there is always the chance that one of our “other” lives begins to ask for an audience.
*****
Sometimes there is a specific trigger: experiencing the death of someone close to us, being abandoned by a lover, being laid off from work, failing to attain an important goal, getting disappointing news, and so on.
*****
life-altering epiphany that makes us feel that the life we have been living is no longer livable.
*****
we know that things have to change in order for us to be able to go on.
*****
we come to see aspects of our reality that have hitherto remained invisible.
*****
On the personal level, it prompts us to make radical modifications to our lives regardless of what this dropping old goals and ambitions and pursuing new ones that we might have earlier found completely inconceivable.
*****
there is no such thing as a fully realized self.
*****
turbulent stream of life in ways that allow for increasing levels of psychological and emotional acumen.
*****
there is a strong link between our sense of lack (emptiness or inner dissatisfaction) and creativity.
*****
This is because lack gives rise to desire.
*****
It makes us want things, and sometimes the best way to get these things is to invent them.
*****
our inner nothingness invites us to populate it with things that mean something to us.
*****
Such excess of hunger can be a response to an excess of emptiness.
*****
we will never be (or have) “enough.” But both scenarios highlight the ways in which lack can give rise to misguided exertions to overcome it.
*****
our foundational lack opens to realms of creativity without which our lives would be much less captivating.
*****
world is a source of both wonder and frustration.
*****
Lacan posits that our sense of inadequacy is primordial—and thus impossible to banish—because it is the price we pay for socialization.
*****
This is why Lacan asserts that “the object is by nature a refound object.” Every “object” (every person or aspiration) we invent or discover is “refound” in the sense that it is always a substitute for the original lost Thing.
*****
it is why it might sometimes be wise to take a step back from the world so as to create space for objects to materialize in their own way, without any interference from us.
*****
They cannot heal our wounds, make us whole, conjure away our pain, or complete us in any definitive sense. They may offer us moments of self-actualization; but they cannot give us redemption.
*****
why trauma is one of the main ingredients of our identity, why who we are has a great deal to do with how we have been injured.
*****
In this sense, the quality of our early exposure to the world dictates a great deal about how we later experience that world.
*****
our repetition compulsion is fanned by the sheer stubbornness of our desire.
*****
when it comes to the repetition compulsion, the more we practice, the more difficult it becomes for us to see alternative possibilities; our patterns become so thoroughly entrenched that we cannot find our way out of the labyrinth of painful personal scenarios.
*****
when he talked about the process of making the unconscious conscious, for he understood that whatever remains unconscious is impossible to change, whereas what becomes conscious also becomes amenable to transformation.
*****
even when we are not the direct cause of everything that happens to us, we are to some extent the architects of our existential landscape.
*****
breaking such patterns that we can become a different kind of person.
*****
One become a different kind of person. One might even say that how we grapple with the unique challenges posed by the repetition compulsion is one of the most character-refining components of our lives.
*****
One can work at reinterpreting an agonizing experience from the past as a constructive influence on our character, so that if we, say, possess a heightened capacity for empathy, we come to see that this is not in spite of but because of this experience.
*****
Throughout my discussion, I have stressed that the fact that we feel primordially lacking—that we rarely feel completely whole and self-realized—is what causes us to reach for objects and activities beyond ourselves. What I am saying now is related in the sense that our awareness of being wounded by the past can become a catalyst for our continuous efforts to bring more evolved versions of ourselves into being.
*****
One can become so invested in our goals and ambitions that we never give ourselves a break.
*****
we spend huge amounts of energy on spiritual practices that are supposed to guide us to our destination, but that actually keep us from living our lives.
*****
pain of the past can spur us to various forms of self-reflexivity and self-development.
*****
The most intolerable components of the past can become valuable constituents of the present.
*****
there is a deep connection between the ways in which we have been traumatized and the ever-evolving singularity of our being.
*****
Suffering washes away what is superfluous; it dissolves impurities so that we can access a more gracious version of ourselves. This is why people who have undergone difficult ordeals are frequently more interesting, more multifaceted, than those who have not. To the extent that they have harnessed the wisdom stored up in their pain, they possess an intensity of character that is palpable to anyone who comes in contact with them.
*****
there is often a tension between our social persona and our character.
*****
abandon a promising career for another one that seems idiotically risky, replace a long-standing aspiration with one that seems completely unrealistic, or suddenly break all of our commitments in order to follow a new lover—someone we barely know—across the globe. In such instances, our actions may appear reckless and even a little insane to others, yet we sense that they possess their own internal validity. They cannot be judged by external criteria because they are incontestably “right” for us even if they are not right for others (and even if they cannot be rationally justified).
*****
it would be a mistake to think that only those of our relationships that endure are meaningful. But the same applies to other kinds of “events” as well.
*****
if there is an “advantage” to our fixations, it is that, in their contorted way, they grant us a semblance of security.
*****
Or think of what it feels like when you cannot sleep because you are so in love with someone that you cannot stop thinking about him or her. It is
*****
When we live “reasonably,” we live without excess passion or excess anguish.
*****
we routinely fail to differentiate between investments that continue to be compatible with the needs of our (ever-evolving) character and others that do not.
*****
learning to accurately read the truth of our desire is so essential.
*****
As long as the voice that is telling us to break with our old commitments articulates a real (truthful) desire, it merits our attention no matter how irrational it may seem.
*****
it is why I have stressed the importance of knowing when to invest our energies and when to hold back.
*****
we might get a chance to give birth to new versions of ourselves without thereby completely losing touch with the old ones.
*****
it is true that we all learn to be specific kinds of people through specific kinds of performances repeat throughout our lives. But this keeps us docile, both personally and politically, is by depriving us of the necessary mental space to conceive of alternative means of organizing our lives. If it is so adept at generating nihilism, it is because it is so good at crushing our imaginations.
*****
By reminding us that what we believe does makes a difference, it reopens the possibility of new possibilities, allowing us to bring new ideals, values, goals, and ambitions into the world.
*****
Theodor Adorno notes the hegemonic nature of the cultural injunction to be happy, arguing that if we are constantly assailed by the idea that we should lead cheerful, pleasure-filled lives, it is because our participation in this creed makes us easier to manipulate. It distracts us from the collective ills of our society—such as poverty and inequality—by inducing us to direct our attention to the coordinates of our own comfort.
*****
But, in principle, we learn that there is a correlation between certain kinds of actions and certain kinds of outcomes.
*****
it would be difficult to free us of anxiety without making us a little submissive.
*****
it is conceivable that the more we buy into the ideal of existential harmony, the more we curb our character.This may be one reason that Adorno asserts that there is nothing as normalizing as our society’s fixation on the notion that we should attain perfect health of both body and mind.
*****
there is a connection between our lived reality and the meaning we attribute to this reality.
*****
being arrested by a crisis of some sort can have constructive consequences: it can prompt us to modify the track we are on so that meaning once again becomes available to us.
*****
sometimes our failures are more productive than our successes. In the same way that giving up an earlier version of the self makes room for a new version, what seems like a failure may make room for the kinds of successes that we might not have been able to attain without this failure.
*****
Failures are gateways to new opportunities. They are often (by no means always, but often) life’s roundabout way of getting us to our destination. Although we would prefer to live without them, they can be effective in spurring us to new personal plot lines whenever our habitual ones have ceased to function properly.
*****
This is why I believe that the most “successful” lives are frequently ones that are also the most acquainted with failure.
*****
This is why I have always been slightly suspicious of therapists who tell their patients to “take things easy.” There are individuals for whom this piece of advice is just about the worst conceivable, for when you take away their drive to accomplish things, you open the door to a host of alternatives that, all things considered, are much more damaging. There are definitely worse coping mechanisms than achievement.
*****
trick, once again, is to channel our energies into something the reflects the truth of our desire. This is why Freud proposed that falling in love is a good way to keep ourselves from falling (psychically) ill. It is possible to take this idea literally, for there is undeniably little that binds (and therefore consumes) our energies more successfully than romantic love: there is something about the passionate dedication of love that offers a powerful “cure” to the predicament of not knowing where to invest our energies. But we can also understand Freud’s statement more metaphorically, as an indication that we all need anchors for our desire. Some of these anchors are concrete, such as professional aims or creative endeavors, but others are wholly intangible, such as higher ideals and aspirations. My point is that, in the absence of such anchors, our surplus energies are likely to flow into symptomatic enactments.
*****
I like to think of Arendt’s daimon and Adorno’s awkward, embarrassing gesture together because I believe that their intersection is where we find the entity that I have been depicting as our character. Like the daimon, this character is intangible yet irrepressible. And like the awkward, embarrassing gesture, it communicates something about the often quite excessive (unreasonable, immoderate) compilation of energy that infuses our lives with vitality. Anxiety represents one facet of this energy, which is why it is not always the enemy that our society makes it out to be. Quite often, it is merely what reminds us of what it means to want what we may have forgotten to want.
*****
Being able to integrate anxiety into our art of living is an important part of crafting a character.
*****
It is a matter of choosing those objects and activities that are most characteristically “us”—that bolster the singularity of our being.
*****
After all, our process of becoming—our quest to realize more of our potential—would lose much of its significance if we never paused to appreciate the richness of the passing moment. In other words, though the process of becoming is in principle endless, and though, as I have argued, the ability to look toward the future is an essential part of this process, there should also be points along the way when life is “good enough,” when it is (and should be) enough to embrace the now even when we know that we are in due course destined to outgrow it.
*****
that it is a mistake to elevate “the now” into a general philosophy of life, as some New Age approaches do. But at this junction I would like to concentrate on those times when the now is so saturated by meaning and value that we are right to allow ourselves to fall under its spell.
*****
it is when we stop searching for meaning outside of life that we finally have a real chance of finding it.
*****
our pursuit of perfection can make us incapable of envisioning a life without it so that we are forever beholden to goals and ambitions that will never materialize. Perfection, after all, is by definition something that belongs to the future.
*****
when we are “lost” in a moment of timelessness, we are also in some ways “lost” to ourselves. Yet such states of self-loss help us find ourselves on a more visceral level. Bollas depicts them as “simple self” experiences—moments of simplified consciousness that enable us to fall into a place “beyond thinking.” In a sense, we allow ourselves to be erased so as to come into being in a new way.
*****
We allow ourselves to experience things as they come, without judgment about how they fit into the larger scheme of our lives. At such moments, the larger scheme does not matter. Only the present moment does. And because of this, the moment yields more than it would if we endeavored to control it.
*****
someone seems “comfortable in her skin.” Such a person inhabits her character in ways that lend her being a singular (wholly inimitable) density. We find such individuals intriguing and are often drawn to them for seemingly inexplicable reasons. Their eccentricity entices us because we realize that if they are able to display it for all of us to see, it is because they are uncommonly courageous.
*****
there is always the chance that one of our “other” lives begins to ask for an audience.
*****
Sometimes there is a specific trigger: experiencing the death of someone close to us, being abandoned by a lover, being laid off from work, failing to attain an important goal, getting disappointing news, and so on.
*****
life-altering epiphany that makes us feel that the life we have been living is no longer livable.
*****
we know that things have to change in order for us to be able to go on.
*****
we come to see aspects of our reality that have hitherto remained invisible.
*****
On the personal level, it prompts us to make radical modifications to our lives regardless of what this dropping old goals and ambitions and pursuing new ones that we might have earlier found completely inconceivable.
*****
there is no such thing as a fully realized self.
*****
turbulent stream of life in ways that allow for increasing levels of psychological and emotional acumen.
*****
there is a strong link between our sense of lack (emptiness or inner dissatisfaction) and creativity.
*****
This is because lack gives rise to desire.
*****
It makes us want things, and sometimes the best way to get these things is to invent them.
*****
our inner nothingness invites us to populate it with things that mean something to us.
*****
Such excess of hunger can be a response to an excess of emptiness.
*****
we will never be (or have) “enough.” But both scenarios highlight the ways in which lack can give rise to misguided exertions to overcome it.
*****
our foundational lack opens to realms of creativity without which our lives would be much less captivating.
*****
world is a source of both wonder and frustration.
*****
Lacan posits that our sense of inadequacy is primordial—and thus impossible to banish—because it is the price we pay for socialization.
*****
This is why Lacan asserts that “the object is by nature a refound object.” Every “object” (every person or aspiration) we invent or discover is “refound” in the sense that it is always a substitute for the original lost Thing.
*****
it is why it might sometimes be wise to take a step back from the world so as to create space for objects to materialize in their own way, without any interference from us.
*****
They cannot heal our wounds, make us whole, conjure away our pain, or complete us in any definitive sense. They may offer us moments of self-actualization; but they cannot give us redemption.
*****
why trauma is one of the main ingredients of our identity, why who we are has a great deal to do with how we have been injured.
*****
In this sense, the quality of our early exposure to the world dictates a great deal about how we later experience that world.
*****
our repetition compulsion is fanned by the sheer stubbornness of our desire.
*****
when it comes to the repetition compulsion, the more we practice, the more difficult it becomes for us to see alternative possibilities; our patterns become so thoroughly entrenched that we cannot find our way out of the labyrinth of painful personal scenarios.
*****
when he talked about the process of making the unconscious conscious, for he understood that whatever remains unconscious is impossible to change, whereas what becomes conscious also becomes amenable to transformation.
*****
even when we are not the direct cause of everything that happens to us, we are to some extent the architects of our existential landscape.
*****
breaking such patterns that we can become a different kind of person.
*****
One become a different kind of person. One might even say that how we grapple with the unique challenges posed by the repetition compulsion is one of the most character-refining components of our lives.
*****
One can work at reinterpreting an agonizing experience from the past as a constructive influence on our character, so that if we, say, possess a heightened capacity for empathy, we come to see that this is not in spite of but because of this experience.
*****
Throughout my discussion, I have stressed that the fact that we feel primordially lacking—that we rarely feel completely whole and self-realized—is what causes us to reach for objects and activities beyond ourselves. What I am saying now is related in the sense that our awareness of being wounded by the past can become a catalyst for our continuous efforts to bring more evolved versions of ourselves into being.
*****
One can become so invested in our goals and ambitions that we never give ourselves a break.
*****
we spend huge amounts of energy on spiritual practices that are supposed to guide us to our destination, but that actually keep us from living our lives.
*****
pain of the past can spur us to various forms of self-reflexivity and self-development.
*****
The most intolerable components of the past can become valuable constituents of the present.
*****
there is a deep connection between the ways in which we have been traumatized and the ever-evolving singularity of our being.
*****
Suffering washes away what is superfluous; it dissolves impurities so that we can access a more gracious version of ourselves. This is why people who have undergone difficult ordeals are frequently more interesting, more multifaceted, than those who have not. To the extent that they have harnessed the wisdom stored up in their pain, they possess an intensity of character that is palpable to anyone who comes in contact with them.
*****
there is often a tension between our social persona and our character.
*****
abandon a promising career for another one that seems idiotically risky, replace a long-standing aspiration with one that seems completely unrealistic, or suddenly break all of our commitments in order to follow a new lover—someone we barely know—across the globe. In such instances, our actions may appear reckless and even a little insane to others, yet we sense that they possess their own internal validity. They cannot be judged by external criteria because they are incontestably “right” for us even if they are not right for others (and even if they cannot be rationally justified).
*****
it would be a mistake to think that only those of our relationships that endure are meaningful. But the same applies to other kinds of “events” as well.
*****
if there is an “advantage” to our fixations, it is that, in their contorted way, they grant us a semblance of security.
*****
Or think of what it feels like when you cannot sleep because you are so in love with someone that you cannot stop thinking about him or her. It is
*****
When we live “reasonably,” we live without excess passion or excess anguish.
*****
we routinely fail to differentiate between investments that continue to be compatible with the needs of our (ever-evolving) character and others that do not.
*****
learning to accurately read the truth of our desire is so essential.
*****
As long as the voice that is telling us to break with our old commitments articulates a real (truthful) desire, it merits our attention no matter how irrational it may seem.
*****
it is why I have stressed the importance of knowing when to invest our energies and when to hold back.
*****
we might get a chance to give birth to new versions of ourselves without thereby completely losing touch with the old ones.
*****
it is true that we all learn to be specific kinds of people through specific kinds of performances repeat throughout our lives. But this keeps us docile, both personally and politically, is by depriving us of the necessary mental space to conceive of alternative means of organizing our lives. If it is so adept at generating nihilism, it is because it is so good at crushing our imaginations.
*****
By reminding us that what we believe does makes a difference, it reopens the possibility of new possibilities, allowing us to bring new ideals, values, goals, and ambitions into the world.
*****
Theodor Adorno notes the hegemonic nature of the cultural injunction to be happy, arguing that if we are constantly assailed by the idea that we should lead cheerful, pleasure-filled lives, it is because our participation in this creed makes us easier to manipulate. It distracts us from the collective ills of our society—such as poverty and inequality—by inducing us to direct our attention to the coordinates of our own comfort.
*****
But, in principle, we learn that there is a correlation between certain kinds of actions and certain kinds of outcomes.
*****
it would be difficult to free us of anxiety without making us a little submissive.
*****
it is conceivable that the more we buy into the ideal of existential harmony, the more we curb our character.This may be one reason that Adorno asserts that there is nothing as normalizing as our society’s fixation on the notion that we should attain perfect health of both body and mind.
*****
there is a connection between our lived reality and the meaning we attribute to this reality.
*****
being arrested by a crisis of some sort can have constructive consequences: it can prompt us to modify the track we are on so that meaning once again becomes available to us.
*****
sometimes our failures are more productive than our successes. In the same way that giving up an earlier version of the self makes room for a new version, what seems like a failure may make room for the kinds of successes that we might not have been able to attain without this failure.
*****
Failures are gateways to new opportunities. They are often (by no means always, but often) life’s roundabout way of getting us to our destination. Although we would prefer to live without them, they can be effective in spurring us to new personal plot lines whenever our habitual ones have ceased to function properly.
*****
This is why I believe that the most “successful” lives are frequently ones that are also the most acquainted with failure.
*****
This is why I have always been slightly suspicious of therapists who tell their patients to “take things easy.” There are individuals for whom this piece of advice is just about the worst conceivable, for when you take away their drive to accomplish things, you open the door to a host of alternatives that, all things considered, are much more damaging. There are definitely worse coping mechanisms than achievement.
*****
trick, once again, is to channel our energies into something the reflects the truth of our desire. This is why Freud proposed that falling in love is a good way to keep ourselves from falling (psychically) ill. It is possible to take this idea literally, for there is undeniably little that binds (and therefore consumes) our energies more successfully than romantic love: there is something about the passionate dedication of love that offers a powerful “cure” to the predicament of not knowing where to invest our energies. But we can also understand Freud’s statement more metaphorically, as an indication that we all need anchors for our desire. Some of these anchors are concrete, such as professional aims or creative endeavors, but others are wholly intangible, such as higher ideals and aspirations. My point is that, in the absence of such anchors, our surplus energies are likely to flow into symptomatic enactments.
*****
I like to think of Arendt’s daimon and Adorno’s awkward, embarrassing gesture together because I believe that their intersection is where we find the entity that I have been depicting as our character. Like the daimon, this character is intangible yet irrepressible. And like the awkward, embarrassing gesture, it communicates something about the often quite excessive (unreasonable, immoderate) compilation of energy that infuses our lives with vitality. Anxiety represents one facet of this energy, which is why it is not always the enemy that our society makes it out to be. Quite often, it is merely what reminds us of what it means to want what we may have forgotten to want.
*****
Being able to integrate anxiety into our art of living is an important part of crafting a character.
*****
It is a matter of choosing those objects and activities that are most characteristically “us”—that bolster the singularity of our being.
*****
After all, our process of becoming—our quest to realize more of our potential—would lose much of its significance if we never paused to appreciate the richness of the passing moment. In other words, though the process of becoming is in principle endless, and though, as I have argued, the ability to look toward the future is an essential part of this process, there should also be points along the way when life is “good enough,” when it is (and should be) enough to embrace the now even when we know that we are in due course destined to outgrow it.
*****
that it is a mistake to elevate “the now” into a general philosophy of life, as some New Age approaches do. But at this junction I would like to concentrate on those times when the now is so saturated by meaning and value that we are right to allow ourselves to fall under its spell.
*****
it is when we stop searching for meaning outside of life that we finally have a real chance of finding it.
*****
our pursuit of perfection can make us incapable of envisioning a life without it so that we are forever beholden to goals and ambitions that will never materialize. Perfection, after all, is by definition something that belongs to the future.
*****
when we are “lost” in a moment of timelessness, we are also in some ways “lost” to ourselves. Yet such states of self-loss help us find ourselves on a more visceral level. Bollas depicts them as “simple self” experiences—moments of simplified consciousness that enable us to fall into a place “beyond thinking.” In a sense, we allow ourselves to be erased so as to come into being in a new way.
*****
We allow ourselves to experience things as they come, without judgment about how they fit into the larger scheme of our lives. At such moments, the larger scheme does not matter. Only the present moment does. And because of this, the moment yields more than it would if we endeavored to control it.
*****
someone seems “comfortable in her skin.” Such a person inhabits her character in ways that lend her being a singular (wholly inimitable) density. We find such individuals intriguing and are often drawn to them for seemingly inexplicable reasons. Their eccentricity entices us because we realize that if they are able to display it for all of us to see, it is because they are uncommonly courageous.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 1, 2025
Dit is een van de weinige boeken die ik niet heb uitgelezen. Niet omdat ik het slecht vond. Mari Ruti heeft heel veel interessante overwegingen, ik schreef dan ook een notitieblaadje vol van uitspraken die mij raakten. ‘Verlangen is nodig voor de groei van ons karakter.’ Prachtig. Maar verder dan bladzijde 100 ben ik niet gekomen. Ik vind de schrijfstijl tamelijk ingewikkeld en vol herhalingen zitten. Ik kon mij er niet goed op concentreren, merkte dat mijn gedachten afdwaalden, en dan moest ik weer een pagina terug om het betoog weer helder te krijgen.
Ik neem mij voor om eerst nog een aantal andere filosofieboeken te lezen, en dan, misschien, dit boek weer op te pakken.
Ik neem mij voor om eerst nog een aantal andere filosofieboeken te lezen, en dan, misschien, dit boek weer op te pakken.
March 24, 2023
How flexible is the self inside me? How permeable are its boundaries? In response to what sort of stimulus does it expand or shrink? (it undoubtedly does, one thing we know for sure about the self is that it isn’t rigid.) Can I exercise some sort of will over it? Do I have just one self inside me? And if there are multiple selves within me, how unified are they? Sometimes I fear that my trauma will be so overpowering that it will devour one of these selves or perhaps all of them, and I’ll be left in a vanishing gulf of diminishing intensity. So I’ve been numbing my numerous selves with meds for the past four years and forcing them to stay - perpetually suspended in dissent.
But there’s something to be said for my trauma, a case to be made. As Mari Ruti puts it in this book, we must see agonizing experience from the past as a constructive influence on our character. After all, my multiple selves developed in tandem with everything I was forced to endure. I am not saying that everyone should face traumatic situations of course, because as science has shown, trauma actually rewires your brain. But I am striving to make peace with my trauma, I am trying to coax that child within me to sleep peacefully, I have been singing her lullabies. But sometimes, I also chain-smoke because she won’t shut up and I’ve had enough of her. I blame my therapist, he’s been trying to understand her and so I did the only thing I know to do well – I ran away.
Because that child inside me needs and needs and wants and wants and she’s always hungry, she frightens me. So I swallowed meds to alienate, subdue and suppress her. But then I read this book that changed my life and don’t ever take my advice or misinterpret this book the way I did - but I stopped taking my meds and decided to cross that unappeasable chasm. I turned inward and asked the little girl “What is it you want? What are you constantly scared of?” I still don’t know, but hey, she’s at least talking now. Because I’m tired of running away and as Mari Ruti expresses so beautifully in this book, anxiety is not always the enemy that our society makes it out to be.
But there’s something to be said for my trauma, a case to be made. As Mari Ruti puts it in this book, we must see agonizing experience from the past as a constructive influence on our character. After all, my multiple selves developed in tandem with everything I was forced to endure. I am not saying that everyone should face traumatic situations of course, because as science has shown, trauma actually rewires your brain. But I am striving to make peace with my trauma, I am trying to coax that child within me to sleep peacefully, I have been singing her lullabies. But sometimes, I also chain-smoke because she won’t shut up and I’ve had enough of her. I blame my therapist, he’s been trying to understand her and so I did the only thing I know to do well – I ran away.
Because that child inside me needs and needs and wants and wants and she’s always hungry, she frightens me. So I swallowed meds to alienate, subdue and suppress her. But then I read this book that changed my life and don’t ever take my advice or misinterpret this book the way I did - but I stopped taking my meds and decided to cross that unappeasable chasm. I turned inward and asked the little girl “What is it you want? What are you constantly scared of?” I still don’t know, but hey, she’s at least talking now. Because I’m tired of running away and as Mari Ruti expresses so beautifully in this book, anxiety is not always the enemy that our society makes it out to be.
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January 2, 2025Philosopher Mari Ruti, who passed in 2023, was a writer of non-self-help self-help books. She rendered obscure psychoanalytic and critical philosophical concepts in a plain style. The Call of Character was Ruti's effort to popularize psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's ethics.
Lacan famously said that the only thing one can be guilty of is giving way to his or her desire. Ruti qualifies the polemical version of this injunction by explaining that it means a person ought not give up on that which makes his or her life truly fulfilling. Not giving up requires making a space for one's passions.
Adapting Lacanian terms, there is a difference, Ruti writes, between one's persona (ego) and one's character (Unconscious). Our personas are formed in how we present to the world but our characters are what lie behind those personas. The persona is only the public-facing aspect of character. As best one can, Ruti thinks one ought to adapt those deeper drives that are of a piece with our character to the environment in which our public-facing self relates to other people.
Ruti believes that necessarily there will be friction. A Virginia Woolf, who needs a lot of time alone and a room of her own for writing, will not be as engaged in interpersonal relations as someone who puts family front and center. But who would want her to conform?
Artists serve as interesting if extreme examples of the kind of people who do not compromise their desires to society. There's something to learn from them. It's not healthy to give up on your passions to the detriment of your wellbeing. Not for their sake or for ours. Woolf gets fulfilment from penning books and we get fulfilment from reading them.
Lacan famously said that the only thing one can be guilty of is giving way to his or her desire. Ruti qualifies the polemical version of this injunction by explaining that it means a person ought not give up on that which makes his or her life truly fulfilling. Not giving up requires making a space for one's passions.
Adapting Lacanian terms, there is a difference, Ruti writes, between one's persona (ego) and one's character (Unconscious). Our personas are formed in how we present to the world but our characters are what lie behind those personas. The persona is only the public-facing aspect of character. As best one can, Ruti thinks one ought to adapt those deeper drives that are of a piece with our character to the environment in which our public-facing self relates to other people.
Ruti believes that necessarily there will be friction. A Virginia Woolf, who needs a lot of time alone and a room of her own for writing, will not be as engaged in interpersonal relations as someone who puts family front and center. But who would want her to conform?
Artists serve as interesting if extreme examples of the kind of people who do not compromise their desires to society. There's something to learn from them. It's not healthy to give up on your passions to the detriment of your wellbeing. Not for their sake or for ours. Woolf gets fulfilment from penning books and we get fulfilment from reading them.
July 23, 2025
Started this a year ago, but kept putting it off till now. Some truly profound stuff in here. Ruti weaves between simple common-sense wisdom and more complex psychoanalytic thought expertly. In this way, she delivers a book that, layer by layer, captures the fundamentals of what it means to be a human being.
She does, at times, get caught up over-explaining her position. But, given the lofty ambitions of this book, I feel that this precision is needed, despite making some sections a tad tedious to read.
She does, at times, get caught up over-explaining her position. But, given the lofty ambitions of this book, I feel that this precision is needed, despite making some sections a tad tedious to read.
July 3, 2023
Love Mari Ruti. Wonderful thinker, this book is a great cross between accessible w sprinkles of academia, looking at the age old of question of how to live a life closest to our hearts desire, how to honour the deeply chaotic waves of experience, how to not mistake a blissful, anxiety free-life for contentment, a really clear parsing out of Lacan's notion of the "thing"/original lack, meditation on finding transcendence/erotics of being in the worldly/mundane. RIP Mari, thank you <3
September 5, 2024
Thank you Mari for you ability to work with psychoanalytic concepts so brilliantly in the context of everyday life ❤️ A much needed counterargument against our culture's obsession with psychological and existential equilibrium as the epitomy of wellbeing, and a plea for listening to the unruly parts within to not ignore the call of one's character. Furthermore a plea for rehabilitating Eros in the everyday (and not merely during sexual interactions). Mainly inspired by Nietzsche and Lacan.
November 13, 2023
A really special read for me. Loved the writers accessible approach without straying into overly simple self-help style. It encourages you to think and digest it, and has stayed with me in my head since finishing. The things I found in it will definitely stay with me and influence me going forward. Look forward to reading other books by Mari.
January 23, 2024
Psychoanalysis meets self-help. The saddest part of the book is that Ruti tentatively apologies for making psychoanalysis readable. That's a shame that the practice of psychoanalysis should reflect upon. Very lovely book. Big topics are accessible. Ruti shares some bold insights and views on what it means to live in ones character.
March 24, 2024
A wonderful instruction book on live that draws our attention to what we desire and how desires inform the essence of our character, where those desires don't fit in our social relationships, where we hold true to ourselves and where we compromise for acceptance and relationship. Desires true and false, short term and long term, ever evolving who we are; or character.
March 16, 2020
This book would have made an incredible impact on 20-year-old me, I think. Still a fantastic read. Ruti name-checks some v cool thinkers, and probably is a great, not-intimidating introduction to these v intimidating people. Would reccomend.
June 7, 2025
Inspired. Mari Ruti was an excellent voice for psychoanalysis in the Anglo-Saxon world, and one of the few essayists on psychoanalysis - along with Adam Phillips -that dared to speak on what they believed to be the good life. She is sorely missed.
May 1, 2022
yum, thoughtful
July 16, 2023
En bok som kan summeras i frasen: >>det är inte vad vi "har", eller vilka vi upplever oss "vara", som gör oss till dem vi är. Det är vad vi upplever oss "sakna" som röjer sanningen om oss själva.<<
March 22, 2024
A nice antidote to the idea that we need to live a balanced life, but it does have the ponderous and qualified prose style of an analytic philosopher.
July 14, 2023
Life changing shit...
August 18, 2025
Though at times it felt a tad unsure, maybe mired in uncertain dualisms, overall I couldn't really ask for more from this pithy little survey on how to approach self-help, Lacanian style - this is the book I'd gift to a loved one in need of some direction.
April 3, 2014
I need to ruminate on this one. My three star rating isn't an indication that I don't think that this book I worthwhile. Quite the contrary. But I am not sure that it is necessary. Read Csikszentmihalyi; read Nietzsche; read Freud. But then again, if you can't quite determine why you are compelled to read this book in the first place (assuming you are), you could certainly do worse. Following that desire half of what Ruti means by living a life worth living.
October 5, 2015
This book is really well written and accessible without becoming meaningless. It's structured pretty good and I must say that this is one of the most helpful books I've read in a while. Although there are some thoughts in the book that could be emphasized a bit more, the excellent endnotes make it a good starting point for more research.
May 23, 2023
"being called to our character is genuinely exhilarating, it is also genuinely terrifying."
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