Having character

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Having character should mean not being passive, not to depend from others, being whole, integer and courageous. All these qualities are very difficult to have for ASD people, at least in situations where confrontation and interaction with others is necessary. ASD people are all absorbed in preserving their solitary burrow. Avoidance of confrontation, retreat and flight are the only means to preserve the burrow or bubble. The problem might be: is it worthwhile to defend the burrow? Is there a chance to find “character” in this defensive attitude? Is there a particular form of integrity there, in the hole, after all?
I don’t know, but I feel this rearguard battle must be fought. Perhaps it’s a very particular form of integrity where something more valuable than the sometime artificial character of integrated humans own.

Actually I have character because it was noted by my Senior Naval Science Instructor in my senior year of high school. My character is basically I never give up on a challenge and stride to do my best no matter how many attempts it takes for me to succeed. I guess this why I never gave up on earning my ensign bar in NJROTC in my senior year.

When I look out of my burrow, all I see is more burrows. The only difference is, I have my burrow all to myself. The NT's all squish far too many into their burrows.

I don't believe you have to be active to have character, it's what you will do under stress or in situations as they manifest themselves that really determines character.

The idea that character has to be 'active' is a bit nonsense to me, even a passive person still behaves. Also just because aspies have social difficulties it doesn't mean they aren't kind, don't donate money to people, or don't help others. It's just that few people ever see it, since it's not visible. I would imagine there is many things people don't know about the "burrowed" they would be surprised by. It's easy to judge people you don't know, to judge a stereotype and say "all ASD people are like so", but you've never lived their lives, you don't have their biology or problems. Armchair judgement of people is easy, I don't take it seriously and I think most people if they seriously thought about it, wouldn't want to judge themselves like they do others to vent/express their frustrations on the net.

Do you consider yourself integer?
Courage is doing what needs to be done, despite the fact that you're scared to do it. How often are you scared (not dread in the pit of your stomach) but anxious/scared? And how often do you still do it, because you know it has to be done? (Tell an uncomforable truth, that person that suddenly talks to you etc).

Having character (or more precisely being perceived as having character) is not about not being passive; but about standing up for others when you feel they've been wrongly treated, doing things because they are the right thing to do and not depend on others to do that for you.

Character can come from so many things: taking in a cat that got mistreated, telling people off when a friend is being harassed (even if you know they won't leave until they've included you in a few snide remarks that might hurt you).

Having character is not limited to those people who are awarded the Purple Heart, but can be found just as much in that friend that stood up for you, that accepted you for who you are. Or the in person you knew was going into a confrontation on which you thought he'd get burned badly, but where the cause (to him) was just and it needed to be done.

But above all; character is a social contraption. What's implied with "Having character" is that there are aspects in your person/personality/character that the world and people around you, wish they'd have or apply more often. The definition is just a collection of attributes that are most commonly referred to when people say "He has character" and the definition is subjective at best.

[edited: fixed last sentence grammar]

Courage is a tricky topic. Things that take a great deal of courage for me may not take any courage for others. Conversely, things that take little to no courage for me may take extreme amounts of courage for some individuals.

That said I think my own hesitance stems more from a lack of any sense of immediate emotional gain from taking a risk. There isn’t necessarily an acute sense of fear holding me back from things. It’s just that my emotions usually revolve around the here and now. It’s hard to get myself excited about future possibilities that involve risk when my mind constantly seeks contentment in the moment. It isn’t so much fear that holds me back as it is a lack of a certain emotional drive that would allow me to tolerate anxiety in the immediate sense for the sake of some future gain.

Especially troubling is the fact that the future is always somewhat foggy and uncertain. There is no guarantee that I will find any reward for venturing out of my burrow just once. Most likely it will take multiple ventures, yet my emotions don’t respond strongly to mere possibilities. There’s a massive inertia to overcome when the promise of better things can’t be clearly discerned.

Character is most definitely in the eye of the beholder. What some consider courageous and honorable others will find reprehensibly cowardly and evil. What about terrorists and suicide bombers. Do those people not have character in their own eyes and in the eyes of their sympathizers?

The song "Soldier of Fortune" by Thin Lizzy has the words 'when all hope is gone we will carry on'
I think that's courage. I think fortune makes most of us feel like cowards at some time - it is often outrageous! Just getting up in the morning and carrying on takes character. Or does it build character? Whatever. I think it's a courageous act to hope or to have faith, that today may be better.

I've been told that I'm too aggressive, meaning I need to be *more* passive. And same with most Aspies I know. Maybe it's a regional thing then.

I think of "fight" and "flight" (as in the primal "fight or flight" response) being two sides of the same coin, both sides are intended for your own self-preservation and doesn't really take into consideration the welfare of whoever/whatever's threatening you. They're both used to protect your burrow, solitary or not. Aspies are pretty good at fight or flight, I'd say.

I think the paradigm that is completely separate from "fight or flight" is the "compromise," "negotiation" type of response. If anything I would argue that Aspies left to their own devices and without any social skills would pretty much suck at this type of response... Not because we lack "character" or anything like that, but because this middle-of-the-road type of response requires less black-and-white thinking, and involves a more nuanced way of solving problems.

Is it worthwhile to defend the burrow? Sometimes. It's important to be able to stick up for what you believe in, but at the same time you can't do that all the time. If you don't accept that you make mistakes, you'll never learn, and that in itself will keep you weak and ill-prepared for whatever life brings you.

Yeah I do agree that having character involves being courageous in the face of adversity, but I also think it involves accepting one's own faults, knowing when to be aggressive and when to be passive, admitting at appropriate times that you really are dependent on others, yet not leech off people, and so on. That's why I tie character and a combination of both intelligence and wisdom closely together, it's only through life experience and well-roundedness that you can learn the difference between when and how to be aggressive/passive, independent/dependent, protective/defensive of loved ones but not spoiling or stifling, etc.

Does that mean that NTs are more likely to have character? I don't think so. I think that with AS we're able to spend enough time on each topic of interest to really get a good understanding of it before we move on. However, most AS folks don't see three-dimensionally and don't move on to other topics of interest, so although we may learn how to be aggressive, how to be passive, etc., we don't learn how to know when to be either of these things. I think for most NTs, they start off with a three-dimensional perspective, so they know when it is appropriate to be aggressive or passive, etc., but they don't instinctively know the details of how to do it appropriately (that's why there's this thing called "culture" that everybody can just blindly follow without much thinking). Can AS deficiencies be remedied? Can NT deficiencies be remedied? Of course, and it takes time, and it takes work. But those folks in the ever shrinking minority that can reach this happy medium between such polarization as "AS" and "NT" have true character and intelligence plus wisdom to me.

I can be too confrontational. If I think something is wrong, I say so, even when it is inappropriate to do so, because I can't always tell, and sometimes I just don't care. But other times, when I am feeling discouraged, I can retreat into my shell and become passive.