How might I characterize you?
~ more of a literary type piece
The affairs of Man are extraordinarily complicated and fine
But there is the attempt to characterize persons (as if they reduce to the description of the wrinkles on their chin). When we assess their characters, we do this to other persons. Is that fair? In the goal of characterizing a person, is it strange that we feel it possible to use language for this holy mission ---to create a picture of another. Why not blank space? By some principle do we *not* want to be a blank space?
That is what characterization is: "Blue with white markings." Characterization is not a way to form a complete picture. It is a way to capture space, a "characterization," not a whole person, but rather something that has chosen to occupy space... the 'characterization' of... what? ~ of space …. Is that the case?
A person is a noun; a word that describes a noun is an "adjective." So, a person is not a string of adjectives, blue, white, angry, etc. When we say it needs to be fleshed out a little, that indicates the limitations of characterization where the characterization is a mere string of words. There are therefore limits to the way we use language to get into the character. Maybe it is true that words can characterize. I am less than fully supportive — it isn't a populist thing or a working class thing. Elie Weisel: maybe can do it. Only G-d can characterize. I am uncertain that others agree with me. I would like that if I can support this observation. I don't feel certain, however, that novelists will support me because I know that novelists do this. They try to "capture" someone but how do you do that--? ~a person is just a person.
So we can stay on the safe side and we do this, as we do virtuously attempt to say only "good things" about (or to) a person. But I am sure the mean little things (characterizations) come in soon enough.
How can you characterize?
Trying to fully describe a person through characteristics reminds me of the old fable of six blind men trying to describe an elephant where each of them was touching a different part of its body - feet, tusks, trunk, sides, etc. You can only capture a certain degree of their essence.
And, to go further, how do we (or can we) describe the depth of each characteristic? These traits (tall, young, slow, aggressive, generous) are comparative terms. How talented someone is in a certain skill is only understood when we compare that person’s ability with others.