The Right Realization At The Right Time

I had my third death dream last night. More accurately, I should call it my third doomsday dream: that's one where not only do I die, but the entire world is destroyed. Considering that I am one who almost never remembers dreams, it is significant.

What worries me about this most recent one was not that I had it, but how well I took it. The first doomsday dream I had, I could feel the fear. No matter how much I tried to let go and relax, I was not relaxed. I was bracing for impact. Last night, I wouldn't say that I welcomed it, but I wasn't afraid.

Mortality is horrifying. It is the #2 fear amongst people after public speaking. It's the kind of subject we ignore and resist until we are lying on our deathbeds and have no other choice but to face it and accept it.

A person in his twenties has no business contemplating his own mortality.

But, I have, both in my waking hours and in my sleep. And, apparently, in both realms, I have made peace with that.

This is not something I'm happy about. There's a reason people don't think about it until they're about to die. First of all, it adds way more drama to stories. Second, and more importantly, once you accept it, you give up.

It's hard to care about life when you have already accepted your death. You get up and you do your thing, not because you want to do it, but because you don't particularly want to die from complacency.

Eventually, though, one makes a second realization, which is that if you aren't going to end your life, you might as well do something you like in the mean time. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy your friends and family. Being miserable is no way to live. (Personally, though, it took me way longer to figure that out than you'd expect.)

What's the point of all of this? The point is that we all have certain realizations in life. Some come at certain points, usually after some powerful experience. We all learn about love, about heartbreak, about independence, about friendship, about death. We don't learn them in the same order, nor at the same time periods in our lives, and that causes differences in outlooks (which sometimes make people incompatible and sometimes makes them the best of friends).

As a writer, your stories are based on your outlook. I could never write the way I did 15 years ago (hell, not even 5 years ago[hell, not even 1 year ago]) because my experiences have completely changed my outlook.

As a character, stories take a standard progression. We meet a character who has a given outlook (which usually defines the character and is palpably dubious). The character goes through some experiences which the character reflects on and then changes their outlook.

It's a classic for good reason: it works. But I always challenge you to break unwritten rules. Consider a character who has had a realization prematurely. How does that affect them? How do they affect the people around them? Who do they associate with? What can happen to them in the story? Do they "unlearn" their lesson? Do they find some even deeper lesson beyond it? Do they simply not change and live their life that way? Does it simply not change their life that much?

There is much fertile ground to explore.