Welcome back to my Substack space that I call Inspiring History. Your visit is indeed appreciated.
The major theme in the content that I create here is what I title Portraits in Character. Let me explain.
The world today is a troubled place. It perhaps always was but I, and you, live here now and it us who can make changes and try to influence the directions of where we are going. Rather than to incessantly complain about the state of the world we can actually come up with ideas for improvement, solve problems, socialize new ideas, or suggest to lawmakers or civic leaders. One way for us to help advance the ways of the world is to live our lives in ways that express our ideas for improvement; live daily how we see things should be, and then be examples for others to follow.
I intend to show instances from history that can help us be those examples to others. These people that I will speak of illustrate, in their own way, how they used their idiosyncratic personality to make things better. All this, to provide for each of us, examples that we may fit ourselves into and to be models for others.
I’d like to explain the framework on what I will use for each story. I use standard dictionary definitions. A “Portrait” is an artistic representation of a person. This is what I will do in each story, taking a portion of one’s life that epitomizes a particular talent or labor that represents what I am trying to express.
The term “Character” is defined here as the make up of moral qualities distinctive to an individual. Every person has a lot of qualities, and these people may have other qualities that are rather modest or small or even contrary, but the key is the particular quality of that person in the story that I tell. The story will describe a recognizably different quality in that person that they have brought to the world that makes the person good for others to emulate.
I hope this explanation helps you understand the framework of the stories. I hope that amongst the stories I provide that you may find something that you find a connection to and a passion for that you can embody. Then you may carry an enhancement to your own character that may be contagiously adopted by others to make our world a better place.