Becoming a Character

My dearest Alex (our wonderful fantasy IT person),

You recently left me a note in the cyber-æther wondering how one becomes main character in real life like the “really cool main characters in books and songs and games.”
A really interesting question, I must say, one of the best in a while (one of the only in a while, too, but still interesting).
Alex Selfie - Copy
First off, let me point out an important feature of life: you are the main character of your life. I am the main character in my life. In other people’s stories, we are sometimes just background characters, sometimes important characters, and sometimes just really fabulous cameos. But we are always the main character in our own stories, and mostly we are important characters in a few other people’s as well.
Main character, I fear, has more to do with the plot than anything we can control.

Stories–whether books or movies or songs or games–are very important. By telling them and being told them, we understand what good or “cool” characters might be. By getting to know Roland, or Atticus Finch, or King Théoden, or Link we understand what it means to be courageous just a little better. By watching Odysseus, or Br’er Rabbit, or Hans Solo, or Sherlock, we learn what a clever character looks like. For whimsy, there’s the Doctor, or you can just listen to the stories your uncles & great-uncles tell.

Telling our own stories is also how we try to make sense of all the things that have happened to us, and try to understand them as all having happened to the same character.

Roan Mountain Walk 022Clearly, we all have a little bit of a hero, or a really cool character in us, the question is how to become that cool character?

No easy way.
You have to write your own character like an author, story-teller, bard, or game designer would.

You have to have a rough idea of who you are, and who you want to be (please don’t become somebody who would have used “whom” in that sentence). This doesn’t mean you have to become a different person than you are, but rather it means becoming the person you are more clearly. Choosing something that really isn’t you is not only inauthentic; in the long run, it is painful. Find the things in yourself that have the potential to be a really cool character, and try to become those.

The disadvantage of being young is that you are so many Passage Difficiledifferent characters, but none of them completely. However, these different parts of you, these passions and gifts (as well as demons and weaknesses) all wibbly-wobbly inside you give you some choice as to who you are to become. A word of warning, though: remember that old wives’ tale about not making a face because it might freeze that way? It is true of character; if you act like a sleazy, unpleasant, tiresome, selfish, lazy character enough–even just to try it on–you will become that character.

Please remember, the best stories show, not tell. The story-teller doesn’t tell you that a character is kind; the story-teller lets you glimpse the character doing kind things.  This means that character is built by actions. Who you are is a mixture of your feelings and your actions. Courage is not a feeling–fear is a feeling. Courage is an action taken in spite of fear. Love, of course, is both a feeling and an action.

Tout est Possible Paris (2)So choose the character you can be–naturally and authentically–and compose and act out your life in a way that creates that really cool main character. As the character develops, it will come more naturally, although it’s possible it will never be easy.

But you will be quite a character.

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6 thoughts on “Becoming a Character

  1. Pingback: From The Philosophy Bistro To The Shanty | Pappy's Shanty

  2. Welcome back. You were missed. Opinion requested: Have you noticed a general decline in goodness in the general population? Your comments on character reminded me of several disheartening observations I’ve made over the past few years. There seems to be a drastic increase in negativeness. Disrespect of fellow man, rudeness, road rage, panhandlers showing contempt when you give them less than they think you should. I realize this is nothing new, it just seems to be intensifying. I wonder if this downhill spiral will continue and, if so, how low can we go and what will it take to reverse this pattern? I choose to remain happy, positive and upbeat (that’s my character) yet some days it is a challenge…

    • I don’t think humans have changed all that much.
      We have a basic urge to kindness, even to altruism.
      We are just not very good at it.
      What we are losing is the basic interactions that allow us to see each other as fellow humans, and an understanding of how to be kind to each other.
      I did not think that I would like humans more in my late forties than I did when I was young, but I do. We are a really mucked up lot, and much too stuck on ourselves, but we try.

  3. Character vs. characteristic…are these the same? I guess character is a compilation of characteristics? But wait, when referring to a “character” in a play, song, story, game, etc, it is completely different as we are really referring to a persona, role, or part…do you concur? Your entree has proven quite complex, thought provoking, and has taken most of the day to digest.

  4. I’m currently involved in a short play (Mister Paradise, by Tennessee Williams), so my thoughts are of characters. Also, that’s where Alex was coming from.
    The original meaning of character was a mark–like a maker’s mark on silver; that’s why it is also used for letters of the Alphabet.
    It refers to the marks by which we recognize something, or that make it distinctly what it is and not something else. Our character is what makes us recognizable as ourselves, as well as the characteristics that make us up.
    But our actions and choices are also marks that make us who we are.

  5. Ah yes, good point, basic interactions are falling by the wayside rampantly….technology be hailed…technology be damned…

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