A Philosophical Waxing

The last few columns have gotten me to thinking (to a certain extent) about character traits and emotions. What traits to I have? Why, to what extent? Each of us believes that we are certain ways......are we correct in how we perceive ourselves......sometimes yes, sometimes no..... For instance I "know" that I am barely into middle age, vigorous, quite handsome (in a rugged way), with a devastatingly brilliant smile....then I look in a mirror, and remember...oh, no I'm older with white hair, lines in my face and don't smile often because of the gappy teeth, and vigorous!!! Even getting to the mirror wore me out.

So what about ourselves aside from the purely physical and hence easily checked upon characteristics? What traits do we actually have? I'm talking about things like integrity, wit, charm, charisma, bravery, intelligence, spirituality, industriousness, a will to win, patriotism....you get the idea.

Looking at my father as an example, not counting looks...how would I describe Frank Spencer.
A serious mien, hard working, dutiful, responsible, respected, respectable, quiet, reserved, industrious, steadfast, loyal, honest, sober, accomplished.

Mom; hard working, cheerful, outgoing, creative, single minded, fun loving, dedicated, dutiful, non-complaining, romantic, practical....you get the idea.

Hmmm, that wasn't how I was intending to go on this subject, but...what the heck.

They certainly weren't perfect people...they each had their faults, although in the rose colored glasses that are hindsight, the faults tend to be glossed over...how about rose colored sun glasses? Mom was born with a world class "worry" node in her brain.....you will be happy to know that she left that intact (after years of nurturing it) to my sister.... She would get exasperated easily, and obsess on something trivial. Dad had no patience for fools (and look who he got for a son), he was obsessive about work, quite shy and hard to know. Boy those sun glasses are working well for me today, hard to think on this line. Might come back to this later.