"With every passing day, we add a page to our personal story, an illustrative script that casts our character shaped by an implacable external environment and fashioned by our supple state of inwardness." ~ Kilroy J. OldsterThis is an obvious topic, surely, and perhaps one that needn't even be written about. Just more fodder to cultivate a positive mindset, maybe? But what I've been working to wrap my mind around is the idea that we all have some central theme we're working towards, writing our stories, and we have both protagonists and antagonists at work throughout. The key point to understand is that we can take something away from both of them.
You would think the presence of these characters in our stories would be easy to spot; diametrically opposed characters in a tug of war for our attention. But sadly, they are sometimes not. Perhaps the difficulty arises from an idea that our stories are works in progress, not yet set in ink on the pages we call our days. And, so perhaps an irresistible companion to life's fluidity defense is the idea that our protagonists and antagonists work to lure us along in their developing stories also. They, too, are on their own journeys writing their tales, but the moment their lives intersect ours it becomes an allegory to us.
"When you realize the influence in your life is the work of craftsmen, it becomes imperative to your existence to break free of their stories and write your own." ~ meThe protagonists and antagonists influence us by casting upon us some pretense, or ulterior objective, but I argue they might not be the ways we expect. This isn't meant to sound skeptical of everything and everyone, but more just to cause awareness. It's important to be aware that influence and the underlying pretense detract from our stories. The stories we pen for ourselves flow from our own minds, befouled or purified by our experiences, into and through our hearts before finding their way down through our hands to the pens we hold. These are our stories to write. So I say, fear the protagonists but love the antagonists!
The protagonists, who we expect to be ourselves, are more often others who purport to help us along in the direction that we suggest we'd like to go. Bear in mind this is a work in progress for us so the character development (i.e. us) is also a work in progress. For this arrangement to work, we must always retain control of the pen. It's far too easy to relinquish control of the very tool used to scribe this life to someone who seems to have a better idea of the path to take. The day-to-day experiences coupled with the mindset and purpose we weave together can only come from us. True, others have forged seemingly similar paths on their way to achievement but it's actually as close to impossible as it gets that these folks started at the exact same point and position in life, faced the same challenges and opportunities, made the same preceding choices and continued at the same pace. We are all miracles that began before our parents even met, so the reality exists that every step in this process is as uniquely individualized as we are. Never relinquish control of the pen and approach with caution the ones who want to show us an easier way!!!
"He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." ~ Edmund BurkeThe antagonists, on the other hand, are rather easy to identify but we sometimes fail to recognize the role they play. By the very definition of an antagonist, we're prepared to meet hostility so the human reaction is likely fight or flight. Fight or defend at all costs; flight or abandon the effort. But, I say view the antagonists merely as analysts of our plans. The fight or flight mentality suggests imagery of a confrontation whereby some thing is at risk of loss. Yet, let's agree on the fluidity aspect of this work in progress. Criticism from antagonists is an opportunity to test the validity and logic of our themes. The protagonists won't offer this anti-advocate point of view. While we might believe this fight or flight mentality would best prepare us for the critical inspections of the antagonists, it's actually a fallacious predisposition. There is no thing to protect or flee. There is nothing other than our next reaction to the world that matters when we pen our story. Absorb the insight from the antagonists once you uncloak the seed of positivity. It's always hidden in there!!!
The characters at play in our stories are as vital to the development as the environment itself. But again, the stories we write are our own individual accounts of triumph and tragedy. And at the end of the story, there is just one name attesting to the truth contained within...yours! This is your story to write.
