{my story is not done}

[kaberett]

A concept I've been playing with over the past few days runs a little like this: you are the protagonist of your own story.

What's your character development?

-- simultaneously and consequently, I've been thinking harder about what constitutes character development. Where I am at the moment is at trying to tease out the difference between how one thinks and what one thinks; I suspect I would more reliably consider changes in or to the former character development than the latter.

(So what's my character development? Thought branches down two paths: the first, of internalities versus externalities, and legibility in each; the second, that an awful lot of CBT is aimed at facilitating what I've here described as character development, and the most obvious example in myself to me is, well, nobody has to be wrong, and the associated reduction in splitting.)

Comments

[alexseanchai]

...

...huh. I am intrigued by the possibilities inherent in those first two lines.

[jjhunter]

Oh, interesting. I've also had character development in reducing splitting, but it happened in a kind of inverted way — in learning to forgive myself for not being perfect, and letting go some of that lingering childhood sense that I had to be X in order to deserve [friendship / attention / validation / patience / forgiveness / etc.], that grace and so much else isn't about being worthy — basically, in getting myself to this point

no one deserves that angle of late afternoon light gilding every crack as gold
no one deserves light tracing every crack with wonder not

when I hit latter situations where part of me felt I had every reason to hate so-and-so for x, y, z, etc., I keep coming back to those same lines again, and realizing all over again that if those lines applied to me neither deserving nor not deserving grace, they also apply to everyone, yes, even this person, yes, even that person. It doesn't mean I owe them anything, but it does mean that I do my best to grant them the same fundamental humanness I grant myself, and that helps keep the urge to demonize / distance by othering in check.

Does that make sense? I couldn't even get to the externalizing stage with any vigor until I started recovering my sense of self as having worth independent of others' opinions. And that sense of worth is founded in part on letting go of needing to prove it, and logical extensions thereof.

(It is occasionally very frustrating, and unsettling, but also — I dunno, a grace in and of itself. Sometimes I write the right poem at the right time for myself, and my changing reading of it pushes me to grow over time.)

Which is all to say: this is a fascinating framing to play with, and obviously sparking lots of resonances for me. Thank you for sharing.

[davidgillon]

Interesting, though my concern here would be that protagonists rarely get to live average, or safe, lives, there's always someone wanting to whip them off to deliver small items of personal jewellery to a volcano half a continent away...

[kaberett]

I dunno, romance is one of the largest market sectors in publishing... :-p

[davidgillon]

{Rolls eyes}

[el_staplador]

Oh, interesting.

I don't think I view my own character development as a linear thing - my feeling is that as I grow I am going deeper rather than further, if that makes any sense? I keep revisiting the same realisations, but I understand myself better and better every time, and as I cast off the stories and assumptions that I no longer need I become more emphatically myself.

[kaberett]

Recovery is a spiral, and so is growth :) But yeah, some of what I'm trying to work out is how to represent depth in this paradigm.

[untonuggan]

for me my character development has to be something around learning to trust my own judgement after years of being trained that clearly I must be "too sensitive" or some shit whenever I start noticing EVIL BEES or whatever else.

and then trying to figure out what I want to do with myself (given limitations of body) is probably a next step.

[damerell]

I was rolled up ten minutes ago and so far I just have "middle-aged bloke with beard" on my character sheet. I may develop, but I suspect it will be only inasmuch as I'll turn out to own a 50' rope and some iron spikes.