In Shakespearean plays there is this concept of a 'fatal flaw'. The origin of this term comes from Aristotle and the Greek tragedies but it can be more conveniently explained through Shakespearean tragedies. The hero of a tragedy has a particular characteristic or peculiar behavioral pattern which brings about his downfall towards the end of the play. It is something so deeply embedded in his basic nature that he himself cannot change it and any attempt to do so results in the opposite consequences. So it could be any characteristic for example; Macbeth is over ambitious due to which he kills the king of Scotland which follows a series of other unneccesary murders and finally results in his own death. Hamlet is too idealistic and believes in seeing only the 'goodness' in any human plus he is also indecisive and does not know when to act so he keeps delaying the murder of his uncle which he should have done much earlier to avenge for his father's death. Othello is extremely jealous and caught by his own insecurities which is why he becomes vulnerable to Iago's manipulations and destroys his only true love Desdemona.
Based on the fact that 'Art imitates Life', I believe that we humans too just like the charcters of a Shakespearean play possess our own respective 'flaws' (if not fatal ones). That singlemost quality of ours acts as ah hindrance in major goals of our life and that is the state we refer to as being 'helpless'. We cannot change the way we are and therefore have to bear with the consequences arising out of this nature. So again, it could be anything- procrastination, greed, idealism, pessimism, submissiveness, anger, carelessness, not being able to speak when the time is right, extreme trust or the inability to trust. Mine would be indecisiveness or lack of focus. Unlike many people who know what they want or what they want to be right from childhood, I havent had a single thing or a single dream. The career choices have kept changing like a chameleon from time to time leaving me as the proverbial 'Jack of all trades..'
So the point is even if we cant change this 'flaw' to a great extent it is fun to sometimes atleast look in retrospect and find out what our respective flaw is. Then, whether to change it, adapt or live with it is totally upto us. If nothing you'll atleast know some more about yourself. So go ahead or write it down if you may- What's your 'fatal flaw'?
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Interesting post. Well done. Let me start with my fatal flaw.
ReplyDeleteTo think too much about few things and ignore the rest completely. A flaw like that of Hamlet. :)
But sometimes what we perceive as our flaw in some context can be our strength in another. Like attention to details can be a flip side of thinking too much.
Maybe its the context of application of these characteristics that matters more sometimes than the characteristics themselves? Or did I fail to realize my fatal flaw?
:) No you have realised your flaw correctly but we get this feeling because we have more than one or rather 'sub-flaws' so when we think of one other negatives also surface. You are right when you say that the context is important. Therefore something deemed as negative may turn positive if the situation demands and vice versa.
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