American Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön, writes in “Comfortable with Uncertainty” that, “…When we start to meditate or work with any kind of spiritual discipline, we often think that somehow we’re going to improve [ourselves], which is a subtle kind of aggression against who we are…Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about trying to befriend who we are.”
The people we know, and our identity informs and comprises the characters we create and who fill our stories. The ability to love our characters is part and parcel to the spiritual practice of writing their stories.
It takes craft and skill to formulate and revise our stories so that entertain and engage readers. We must hold love and compassion to embrace our protagonist(s) and their supporting cast, antagonists and. Much as with a dream all the contents of which dream symbolize and represent the dreamer, the characters we create form a montage reflecting aspects of who we are, and hope to become.
The best characters draw empathy. But empathy requires flaws. The character must demonstrate struggle and frustration to garner this from the reader.
The fight to achieve one’s goals involves moving past obstacles that are both physical and emotional. Both are usually rooted in something about the character’s behavior, past and present and affecting her or his emotions, the fabric of humanity connecting us to each other, and ourselves.
Staying the course with writing our stories forms a spiritual practice much like living and establishing meaning in the very fact that we are alive. The two practices are intricately interconnected woven. We live to write and write to live. And yet what would in both living and writing is so much more.
Our characters reflect aspects of ourselves to which we are made aware, and recognize through engagement with others.
The roots of who we are and are on the path to becoming lay etched upon their personalities, thoughts and actions.
We can never write their stories without loving them.
To accept and love our characters despite their foibles is to receive ourselves, their creator, in the glory of identity, who we are, our humanity.
Who is your most favorite, or one of the most favorite characters, you’ve written about?
What endears them to you and you to them?