As he explained in the Paris Review interview, "To put it simply, I feel that the universe is full of glorious energy, that the energy tends to take pattern and shape, and that the ultimate character of things is comely and good.
FOR more than a century, scientists have yearned to explore the bizarre effects expected to occur when matter is subjected to truly crushing pressures - pressures capable of changing the character of things and transforming even hydrogen, water and diamonds into metals.
On this account of creation, it is not only the existence of things that is the sole product of the divine creative activity but also the character of things as well.
Mendelssohn acknowledges that, despite the fact that the method is the same and the content in each case (mathematics and metaphysics) is an intrinsic character of things, progress in metaphysics has lagged far behind that in mathematics.
"Sickly, neurotic, and so myopic that he is afraid of losing his sight; but for this very reason an eminently receptive creature and sensitive to the character of things," wrote French writer and art critic Edmond de Goncourt about Edgar Degas.
In "Notes of a Painter," Matisse reflected that his goal as an artist was to uncover and record with balance and purity the "essential character" of things beneath their external appearance.
Moreover, according to Theophrastus, Anaximenes explicitly states the natural mechanism for change; it is the condensation and rarefaction of air that naturally determine the particular characters of the things produced from the originating stuff.
Maybe this is convention-season talking, but it is easy to empathise with the characters of Stranger Things, frustrated by the demand that they choose a "lesser evil" between governmental men in black or a literal hell beast.
That takes a lot of the character out of things.
