"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it. The tree is the real thing," said Abraham Lincoln. What is the "real thing" of our national character? Let's define character as the values we, that is, a critical mass of us, display consistently over time. For abundant clarity, "critical mass" means a large enough segment of the population to represent the whole. So what are the values that enough of us display to define our national character?
Bahamians remain hospitable, helpful, and peaceful. We are religious, reactionary and political. We are moderately industrious, we are talented and we are often timid. We are given to short-termism, impulsiveness and passivity. As a general assessment, Bahamians are a good-natured people who demonstrate civility and sufficient effort to make it to the next day. Our character has gotten us to the place we are today, a middle-income country that somewhat shines in the developing world but clearly manifests limited exceptionalism.
Many of the values we now display should be kept as features of our character. Hospitality, helpfulness, religious fervour, talent, industry and the like are great values to have. We do, however, need to add to these character traits a number of others. There are three that I believe would be immensely helpful.
The first value to add is authenticity. We Bahamians spend far too much time trying to please other people. From our earliest years, we begin training in the art of keeping up appearances for others. Children pretend with parents to like doing this or that, knowing full well that they hate it. Then we go on to please our teachers, who tell us that we would be a good this or that, knowing we have an interest in being something entirely different. Then we move on to pretending with our pastors and priests that we are this or that, knowing full well that we are anything but that. We take this pretentious self into our relationships with friends, pretending to be more of this or less than they think, so as to appear to be acceptable in their social circles. If that isn't enough, we get married, or don't, and fake our way through relationships with spouses or significant others, unwilling to express genuine pleasures or pain. We pass this pretentiousness on to our children, only to have them repeat the process. Of course, our politics is replete with falsity, as we pretend to find acceptable the nonsense of leaders or followers.
Dr. Lordes Viado, a specialist in depth psychotherapy, says that there are three benefits to authenticity: (i) healthy self-esteem and self-worth that enables you to pursue a life more aligned with your true self; (ii) better coping skills because you deal with yourself and life as they are; and (iii) purposefulness because you choose pursuits that align with your true self and not what others want. Falseness leads us to be dishonest with ourselves and others. We hide too much, from ourselves and others, never truly dealing with issues and, therefore, never really being able to seize opportunities. If we Bahamians add authenticity to our character, we will be able to make progress on many of the personal and community issues plaguing us, from incest to ignorance to impropriety to poverty. I am convinced of it.
The second value to add is openness. We Bahamians adopt views that are more often than not, uninformed, and will only let them go when they are pried away from us with the sledgehammer of a really bad experience. We form views about people we have never met, or have only heard of from others, and treat those views as infallible. We hold views of the world based on nothing but a Facebook post, WhatsApp note or whisper in some hallway, and then act those views out as unequivocal truth. This leads to bad thinking, bad acting and bad results. This notwithstanding, we seldom make a change from it.
If we open ourselves to the possibility that we don't know, or don't know enough or are just plain wrong about some things, then we make possible the opportunity to be informed, become more enlightenment and find correction. Imagine what would happen if this happened; imagine how much better off we would be. Openness does not ask us to pretend we are not right about some things; it simply asks us to acknowledge that we might be wrong about others. This might make us kinder to others; more accepting of ourselves; and more intrigued about our world and the universe in which it exists. It will certainly help us be more trainable, more cooperative and more productive in life and in the workplace.
The third value to add is studiousness. The only thing that matches our willingness to share something we think is juicy, no matter confirmed or not, is expressing our opinions about things that we have not studied or have not studied enough. If we study more, gather facts, figures and evidence to support our thoughts, our confidence to speak up and speak out will be complemented by our competence to do so. This will lead to better dialogue, debates and discourse. We should not hold back from expressing ourselves. That zeal, however, if combined with knowledge will produce greater value to our society. Our communication in all spheres of endeavor could benefit from greater studiousness. From our political leaders to our parental guidance, if we are more informed, we will get better results.
Ours is a blessed nation. We have many virtues that have made us a striving people. Yet, we have additional positive traits that can be added to our national character to cause us to flourish even more. Authenticity, openness and studiousness are three that I believe offer huge benefits going forward. How do we add these to our national character? We do so by making sure they exist in our individual characters and seeking to promote them in the characters of those within our spheres of influence. Will this happen? Who knows, but I am a dreamer, and as the late great Teddy Pendergrass sang, dreamers just "keep reaching out for passion, no matter what the pain". With God's help, this dream can be a reality. Shall we try?

o Zhivargo Laing is a Bahamian economic consultant and former Cabinet minister who represented the Marco City constituency in the House of Assembly.

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