Rain

## Overview

Core Identity

• Role in story: Protagonist

Enneagram (type + wing): 4 (Self Preservation)
Default emotional state: Drifting / Coasting (Doing just enough but feeling you’re not making actual progress)

Belief Engine

Core belief about the world:
Core belief about self: I am missing a certain essence or event that would actually allow me to change and become my best self.
Lie they’re living by (what they pretend is true): Once I understand myself better and remove any of my internal blocks, I will finally act
Secret desire (what they really want to be true):

Behavior Under Pressure

How they act when stressed or threatened:
What they avoid:
What they overdo or exaggerate:

Story Function

What they want (goal/desire):
What blocks them internally (fear, self-doubt, flaw):
What blocks them externally (other characters, society, events):

## Expression

I want to express this issue where I want to become someone that can create without restraint. Or basically, someone who wants to become their true authentic self, but is unable to access it.

This character is a splitting image of myself in figuring out the core struggle that is preventing me from writing this book or doing anything at all. I am getting distracted by all the comforts I have in my life. Not only that, but I feel a sense of longing to create something meaningful even though I continue to drift. I sometimes wonder if that’s due to my built up behaviors over the years and that at this point, something crazy needs to happen in order to change everything

I know that incremental changes are what is needed, but it seems I continue to fall back into my old identity of continuing the same routines. I’ve identified that my path moving forward will require me to uproot myself and move to Japan. Obviously, a change like this will not solve my issues, but I believe that it will give me greater opportunity to challenge myself without anything else holding me back. Or better yet, no safety nets to fall back on.

Intellectually, I know this is the move. There are numerous reasons that I feel moving to Japan is the move. Not necessarily because it’s more comfortable there, but really that everything will be so much more aligned with myself that I can see the potential growth I can accomplish when I get there. As I said before, intellectually I know this and intellectually I know this is all based on assumptions that I will never truly know until I try. However, there seems to be a lingering feeling that makes me afraid of the consequences of my actions. For example, telling my parents my plan has revealed just how much they are stuck in their beliefs and how utterly hopeless it will be to convince them that this is the path I must take. All I want is for them to recognize that they’ve done more than enough for me and that I need to walk my own path that will not make their efforts in vain. However, what ends up happening is that my dad threatens to do this and that while my mom seems to attempt to guilt trip me. I know this is due to their love for me and their own psychological problems, but it makes me suffer so much. Yet, I continue to put up with this and begin to fall back into old habits.

So a key detail I am exploring is this idea that I want to pursue my own individuality. Or rather, to focus on pushing myself out of my comfort zone and to do the things I would think were improbable. Like learning Japanese and moving to Japan or writing a meaningful novel. I followed the script of going down the relatively safe path for far too long (completing university, getting a stable job, staying home). In a sense, I’ve suppressed a big portion of myself unconsciously. Even though I do things that progressed towards my dreams, they would either not be completed or were put off after a period of time. Instead of following all these typical routes, I should follow my instincts and try doing more that fulfills me and gives me joy. The issue is, as I decide to go down these routes that follow myself, they begin to reveal all of the walls that have kept me in this mindset.

My parents are not to blame; however, they do represent a key boundary in my mind that is limiting my sense of freedom. I do these little actions to change parts of myself to become better, but they never recognize these changes as all of them are usually internal and I don’t consistently show them externally. What really hurts me is that they interpret all of these behaviors from me as insolence and selfish. They never listen to what I actually want; almost as if they cannot recognize I am my own individual that can have differing beliefs and actions different from them. I’ve always felt that I need to be the one that fixes my own issues. It is to always ensure that I am secure and that I do what’s best for the family.

At the end of the day, I set my own limits whether consciously or subconsciously. I have to accept the fact that in order to become truly me, I need to let go of my old identity and the things I’ve used as excuses to not do the things I truly want. Because of this, I think that I will be seen as something similar to a fugitive; a person who has attempted to break the current system and is being actively hunted down to stop their efforts.

That’s probably what my main story will revolve around on. Rain will make a seemingly simple decision that leads to a life altering decision that will make him a fugitive (at least in the eyes of the public and his family). Internally and in the sense of the grand scheme of things, he is doing the courageous thing even if he doesn’t truly understand the full consequences of his decisions. Once he fully realizes himself and that he can just be truly present without waiting for some sort of self understanding threshold, Rain will become unstoppable internally. He will then be an “actual” fugitive that becomes a key individual for change. I sort of want him to feel like he isn’t a fugitive (since his actions were seemingly reasonable to himself) and that he must clear his name, but by the end of the story becomes someone who allows himself to just be. What is important to the story is that I feel like I am missing a key to becoming my greatest self and that I feel like I could make it into reality. But to actually enact the changes and to overcome the self limits is so difficult that it feels you need some sort of push from your environment or someone to guide you. What becomes apparent is that you cannot rely on some miracle or person to provide you the actions to overcome your circumstances. It is that you are you is what makes the difficulty of overcoming your own set of circumstances is what makes for a compelling story. And if you continue to ignore the call from your “silent” sub conscious, it will lead you down a life of constant regret where your life doesn’t really change significantly and you fade into the background of humanity.

A thing I am not sure how to tackle is if it is the duty of every single person to push the bounds of humanity? Like, do people need to create something great that helps others or do you need to reach your own enlightenment first? For example, how truly helpful is it for a singular person’s actions will actually change their world and the people around them? Is it merely a stopgap or mitigation strategy or is it the key to actually creating change? I feel like it’s the latter, but how do I convince the antagonist that this is possible and the ideal outcome is difficult. There are so many inefficiencies and so much meandering that you start to question if you had the option to bypass all that, would you? Would it be better for society if we just solved these things and allowed others to essentially bypass the directionless or inconsistent state that most people are in?

I myself have changed a lot over the past few years even though I still feel like the same person. A lot of these changes in mindset, identity, and so on aren’t very apparent to others and even to myself sometimes. There is this sense that my “self” remembers everything that has shaped me even though there is no tangibility or clear memory for every single thing that has affected me.

Now, I am trying to figure out why I am attracted to the idea of theming the story around the concept of memories. I believe there are a few things that are really interesting that I want to explore that memories being a key point makes things interesting. For one, experiences are the most important thing that allows someone to change. Now what if those experiences can be altered or removed? That’s the core idea that I want to explore with my antagonist Vesper (name pending). He is someone who was similar to Rain in that he was also stuck in life even though he had everything going for him. However, for Vesper, his actions ultimately resulted in a tragedy that makes him believe that the only way for people to change is to forcibly change people himself. This touches on the idea that I believe people only change when placed in a situation that requires them to adapt. I noticed while pushing carts that most people aren’t inherently malicious when they placed the carts in inconvenient places. They usually do these things based on how they were taught by society and/or they don’t have or want to spend the time to consider the consequences of their actions. So if they don’t want to spend the time to consider the consequences, they won’t mind if I erase the experiences/memories that cause them to act in this incorrect way. For the betterment of society and supposedly for the person altered. Vesper is similar to Rain in that they both felt they were in a state of stagnation and couldn’t do what they want because they felt something was missing or was stopping them internally.

Basically, the significance of what you should remember or forget. Rain, although he is forgetful in some of the mundane things in life like where he places his things, he continue to remember (or rather cling to) he is not currently worthy enough to create his dreams into reality. Meanwhile, Vesper can remember every single thing that has happened to his life, but neglects himself and forgets to see what truly matters. Vesper is a more “realistic” version of myself in the sense that he sees humanity’s flaws as something that must be corrected. Like seeing a hyper individualized society as a problem as it promotes selfishness and forces people to only think for themselves. Whereas I choose to be more like Rain, a person who continues to dream and believe that the flaws are made to be overcome despite how much difficulty there is in actually achieving these dreams. The issue is, intellectually, I believe in Rain’s philosophy, but I feel more like Vesper’s philosophy way too often in the unconscious sense. I am saying that even though I think it is better to be hopeful, it’s hard to actually feel that way especially in those days where it feels you have no control over yourself. That’s the reason why I believe Vesper’s proposed solution is very compelling for those who have not had that sort of unwavering belief or have felt how beautiful the human spirit is. Vesper begs the question to what if we were able to control our own memories and manipulate them to improve ourselves? If that was possible, would you choose to forget these negative memories that limit our own actions? I’ve felt that perhaps if I were able to fix the behavioral or psychological problem within my own psyche, would I then be unencumbered and will become my truest self?

Vesper believes memory, especially painful ones, are the issue that needs to be fixed. Usually, forceful change is required to change someone; however, the issue is that it removes (forgets?) the actual struggle that was required for someone to change. Rain does remember what he needs to do and is clung to his habits; he needs to act and let go of having to prove himself.

While Rain and Vesper are mirrors to each other, Roxana and Claire are more of the ideals I myself would like to follow, but with included drawbacks for their extreme level of competence. Claire is the prime example of someone who can do the (visual) calculus of predicting all potential issues and to act accordingly to them. Basically, what if I was able to make such good plans that everything would fall in place? However, the thing I want to explore with her is the overthinking aspect of myself and the constant hesitation of not feeling like I can proceed with the plan unless everything is accounted for. As a possible addition, I want to sort of argue that even if you had the highest ability of rationalization, you cannot account for every single possible thing. Sometimes, it is dependent on your own beliefs and the sheer determination to make them into reality. A key thing I will probably explore for Claire is what will she do when faced with a dead end scenario. Maybe something like an inevitable death? How do you convince someone who is more than likely going to die that there is still hope? How do I convince her that by giving into the limiting belief ensures a sort of self fulfilling prophecy? Claire’s main motif is a visual calculus prediction combined with her sniper where she must get an overwhelming amount of data to execute to execute a single precise move.

- A fun scene I want to write into the story is where Claire shoots several bullets out of the air.

Roxana is more so a more confident version of myself in that she has a more unyielding tenacity and conviction in herself. Even though she is physically impaired (tbd, probably has severe burns on her arms), she continues to push herself to overcome those limitations and will not burden others with these limits. The issue is, having that much conviction in yourself can backfire if you don’t have anyone to fall back on. I want to show that despite being such an independent person, there is no replacement for human connection. She is basically what I envy from very confident and amazing people who have actualized their full identity into the world and become a shining symbol for others. Her main motif is that of a small flame or a spark where she seems to not have much actual intensity, but proceeds to burn as bright as she can in a lonely, dark world.

- A likely scene to add is one where Roxana loses the ability to use her entire body properly. This is due to the antagonist removing her memories of core mobility functions (temporarily?).

After some further reflection on my own writing so far for this idea of Remember Rain, there seems to be a through line that focuses on this idea of requiring further self understanding of my self or needing some justification before taking action. Almost as if I need an entire thesis or provable valid set of reasons before I can actually commit to a specific goal. “Waiting to feel morally justified before acting as yourself.” This sentence has made it all click in my mind in that I continue to intellectualize and think so much on how to do things in a way that will justify myself to everyone else around me.

I felt stagnant and lost for a time, but never really forgot all the things I want to do. The issue is, a lot of what I value seemingly conflicts with each other:

- Identity vs responsibility,

- truth vs stability,

- movement vs safety

I initially thought I was trying to find myself; to find that “thing” that I am fully aligned with and can stick to. Instead, I am learning that I am sort of trying to earn the right to exist as myself without apology. This idea on the surface doesn’t seem to be something I struggle with. I do things I like for example watching anime, yapping on stream, singing to myself, etc. But I actually struggle with these things in the sense that I am doing these things out of comfort. What I need is to become someone who can be unfiltered in their self expression; where I pursue deeper ambitions in spite of any fears and stakes trying to sway my actions away from trying. I must do things in spite of being ready or having complete understanding. To allow myself to take a chance on the pursuits with the highest stakes and fully exist as my most authentic self.

What is more apparent is that commitment is the single most important thing I need to focus on. Even though I sort of already knew this, it hasn’t been so clear until now after seeing all of the writing and self work I’ve done over the past 2 years. A linking idea to this is this idea that I like imagining that I have infinite potential just like everyone else; however, I cling to this idea of potential so much that I don’t want to commit to a thing to limit myself. I hesitate because the thing I fear most isn’t failure (even though that’s what I always thought it was), it is irreversible action.