3T Writing Tidbit

 So one of the reasons we read fiction is to get a perspective on our own lives we couldn't get without the distance.

I was just rereading one of the 3T blog posts to make sure it still scanned and I had a shocking realization.

The post (here) was about the mask of a complete human being -- that characters imagine themselves an archetype and do everything they can to live that archetype. The post's argument is that it prevents them from growing, from changing, from being truly themselves.

The shock was that I'd recently come to that same conclusion about myself.

I have an idealized form of myself, the person I want to be. Kind, funny, smart, graceful, charitable. I do everything I can to live up to that ideal, which is a good thing.

What's a bad thing is that I'm so focused on being that perfect ideal, I can't imaging anything else for myself. Worse, I'm angry and disappointed with myself when I fail to live up to my idealized self.

Any of you have this?

They're good traits, but they mean I can't grow or really be me. For example, I'm hell on wheels when it comes to finding errors in computer code. We need that -- when code goes wrong, it isn't pretty, and we need a surgeon to find that bug an excise it.

But in doing that, I'm not completely kind and definitely not graceful. It's a messy, unhappy business. I'm not saying it's not ultimately a good thing. It needs to be done in order for better things to happen. It's just not my "ideal" self.

And this is ultimately why we live along with some characters in fiction. To watch their mistakes as they cling to their ideal self. As if they're a human encased in a porcelain doll of themselves, we're relieved when they break the out of the shell and truly live.

I'm breaking out of my shell. Slowly, having to be reminded. Leaving behind the shards of my "best" self to become just myself.

What about you? Do you hold yourself to a perfect ideal? And... is it interfering with the amazing person you truly might be?

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.