Hollow People

In my youth I was involved in the manly art of pugilism (fisticuffs). I was also a student of other martial arts. From these activities I learned many lessons about life. In addition to “keep your hands up and your elbows in,” I learned some things about character. You quickly learned who had a fighter’s heart and who was a quitter and into which category you fell. A fighter learns to recognize his opponent’s weaknesses and how to exploit them. He sees his rival’s strengths and avoids them.

Many times a fighter tries to correct his own weaknesses after years of establishing patterns that have gotten him into trouble while in the fray. He will spend months of training learning how to be a different kind of fighter. He climbs into the ring thinking he is a new man. All goes well until his challenger “lights him up” with a hard punch. At that point all of his training goes out the window and he resorts back to his old patterns. In the moment of crisis he abandons his new fighting behavior and returns to his old fighting character.

This is not unique to the boxing ring or the karate mat. An individual’s behavior often briefly changes given specific circumstances. An individual’s character, however, does not change and that underlying character will ultimately determine an individual’s behavior especially in times of great good and great difficulty. Only a dramatic conversation can change the foundational character of an individual.

Robert Harris writes in his novel, Pompeii, and in describing the inhabitants of the city after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, “Pompeii became a town of perfectly shaped hollow citizens.” We all must be more than hollow people. We need to be people filled with consistently honorable character whether the circumstances are good or bad.