In the preface to the Call of Character Mari Ruti introduces what she'll cover over the expanse of her book. That while many self help authors and gurus advocate for streamlined approaches (do these 12 things to attain or achieve x) to living the good life, she intends to show that a big part of life is realizing that struggle and hardship are to some degree necessary. And that, counterintuitive though it may seem, we wouldn't actually even want a life without some degree of lack. 

Though trauma and lack can wound us greatly -- that these lack shouldn't be overlooked or minimized but rather metabolized ... and in a strangely hopeful way these injuries can also be sites that open us up to the possibility to hear a call that when heeded can usher us into new forms of being that can be emancipatory not only for us as individuals but for our communities as well.  

She'll argue against essentialism and advocates instead for a way of dwelling or being toward the world that has made peace with the fact that we never completely attain equilibrium ... or that if we do, we do for relatively brief moments. 

She believes that instead of pursuing an authentic core or kernel within the self, that one can alternatively attune oneself to the call of character -- that we become our most authentic selves when we remain faithful to the specificity of our desire and that this specificity can free us from the herd mentality that stifles the idiosyncratic spirit that resides within every person.