Pocket guide to personality
HOW do you get to know someone’s real side? A wise Hebrew phrase that loses something in translation suggests that a person’s character can be judged (if not known) by three things: kos, kesa, ka’as — cup, pocket and anger.
The traditional understanding of these words is to see them as applying to how a person acts having had a cup or two of wine, how generous a person is with money (kesa can be translated as purse as well as pocket) and how he or she acts when provoked to anger.
Whether these are fair measures by which to assess true character is debatable. There are those who would suggest that the measure of a man or woman should be made by behaviour and actions over a long period of time, rather than the quirks that might come about after one too many or a tense altercation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes: “It is the duty of men to judge men only by their actions. Our faculties furnish us with no means of arriving at the motive, the character, the secret self. We call the tree good from its fruits, and the man, from his works.”
An opposite view posits true character as being shown by how a person behaves when no-one is watching. It is when one is alone, or believes oneself to be so, that the inner manifests itself.
While there will always be differences in opinion about how best to assess a person, it is remarkable how the little things reveal so much. A recent discussion about the pocket theory of personality led to a few of us emptying our pockets to see what the contents showed about ourselves.
One person pulled out a passport. Turns out he carries it around daily, moving it from pocket to pocket depending on what he’s wearing. This seemed quite odd to me, a vestige of a refugee mentality I thought we’d outgrown.
And uncomfortable, too, with its size and bulk. To him, a passport in the pocket is a useful form of identification and handy as “you never know” what a day might bring.
The contents of another’s pockets were emblematic of his big heart. Out came a poorly photocopied page entitled “Letter to my Child”, which expresses poetically what a parent can and cannot do for a child.
“I can teach you about kindness, but I cannot make you gracious. I can model values for you, but I cannot make you moral” -— and so it goes on, culminating in “I gave you life, but I cannot live it for you”.
Also within his pocket was a small piece of paper with an important phone number written on it of a person he’d promised to call should certain circumstances arise. That this person carries the phone number with him everywhere, day after day, testifies to a caring nature and gentle vigilance.
In contrast, the contents of my pockets were completely banal: one of those blue plastic bags for the dog’s doings; an old shopping list; a daughter’s hair clip. Not exactly a reflection of my character, but clearly linked to my life.
Pocket extended to wallet would probably be more representative, with its photos, membership cards to four or five libraries, copy of Tefillat Haderech and a broken earring I’ve been meaning to drop off at the jewellers for ages.
What’s in your pocket -— and what’s not -— can make all the difference in extreme situations. Making news last week was Victorian MP Tim Holding’s mountain hike gone wrong. As he slid down the icy side of Mount Feathertop, his pocket knife flew out, alerting hikers below that something was wrong. What Holding really needed, as he admitted later, was a personal beacon.
That he went out alone ill-equipped says a great deal about his character, as does the fact that he had the mental and physical stamina to compensate for his empty pockets.
As it happens, this is the time of year to symbolically and literally clean out our pockets. The ritual of tashlich, performed on Rosh Hashanah, entails emptying the crumbs and drecks from one’s pocket into fresh flowing water. As we do this, we seek to cast away wrongdoings and negativity and begin anew.
While not the traditional interpretation of the Jewish proverb, the pocket test can be a useful guide to self and others.
Sidra Kranz Moshinsky is a teacher and freelance writer.