Flow-Based Character Development
Welcome to Recalibrating! My name is Callum (@_wanderloots)
Join me each week as I learn to better life in every way possible, reflecting and recalibrating along the way to keep from getting too lost.
Thanks for sharing the journey with me ✨
This week we are going to talk about the pillars of story and how you can develop your Voice to tell your story in a mentally healthy way.
Recap From Last Week
Last week, I provided three tools for your journey of self-awareness on the path of self-actualization:
- Mindfulness and meditation help to improve attention and find comfort with change.
- Journaling provides data that can be used to identify patterns in your thinking, enabling greater control over the change that occurs in your life as you develop an understanding of your own story.
- Sharing your story with others helps foster community and indicate the experiences that actually resonate with you.
This week, we are going to continue by discussing the psychological difficulties with sharing stories online and the deeper reasons why so many people don’t bother in the first place.
The Three Pillars of Story
As discussed last week, story forms the foundation of how humans communicate and share information with one another.
To address the issues we face with sharing stories online, it is helpful to look at what actually makes up the concept of story.
Story has three major pillars: character, setting, and plot. Characters are the players, the heroes on the journey that is the plot, taking place in the world that is the setting.
Before we get into the details of how these pillars of story can be used to help with creation and knowledge work, let’s take a look at the problems associated with story in an online world.
Note: this commentary will apply to your self-expression regardless of whether you intend to share your story online. The goal is to help improve self-awareness while working towards self-actualization ✨
Finding Your Voice
When I talk about finding your Voice, there is a reason I capitalize the word. I do not mean merely speaking or writing your mind with words, I mean embracing what it means to be you across the span of your life.
Each person is unique in this world. Each person has a different story to tell. This story is forever in development, changing day by day, week by week, year by year.
The present moment is the culmination of your entire life thus far. Everything in your life has led to this instant. Where you grew up, who your family and friends are, where you went to school, what you’re passionate about, where you have travelled, etc. This culmination of experience, when harnessed, forms the foundation for your Voice.
However, each of us does not have one self, we have many facets of our selfs, forming the gestalt whole of our being. Gestalt means an organized whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Synergy.
In other words, we can have our introverted self, our reader self, our runner self, our artist self, our party self, our science self, our adventurer self, our lawyer self, our engineer self, so on and so forth. The list is endless and so are the combinations of selves.
There is no single “self” that fully encapsulates the whole of our being. The gestalt self can vary from day to day, changing as our lives change, growing as we grow.
So what do I mean then when I say “find your Voice”? If our true self is not one self, but many selves, how can we find a single “Voice”?
The answer is that the style of your Voice may change regularly, but if you zoom out and see the bigger picture of what it means to be you, checking the pattern woven by the threads of your experience, you begin to notice a certain consistency in the way you operate.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because I am referring to the concepts of self-awareness and metacognition discussed in last week’s entry. The ability to understand who you are and what it means to be you; to recognize the patterns in your thinking and actions.
The problem, as noted last week, is that while 95% of people think they are self-aware, in reality, only 10-15% are.
We bounce around between the different versions of our selves without recognizing that there is a consistent pattern in our way of thinking (our True Self). Our unique way of thinking forms our mind, but the mind is merely our way of framing our unique reality, it is not our True Self.
We are a combination of our mind and body, often reacting physically faster than we can think, using the intuition of our past experience (both our actual experience and genetics) to guide our present actions.
The mind may make our reality, but many people (most in my experience) are not in control of their minds. Instead, they flit from thought to thought, problem to problem, without separating their self from the problem. They live in states of fight or flight, moving from one anxious thought to the next, reactively solving one problem after another.
How then can we recognize our Voice amidst the constant struggle that is existence?
If we do not learn to recognize our own Voice, how can we expect others to?
Society Says
Finding your Voice can be difficult, especially when society suppresses creativity in favour of more “valuable” pursuits. Standardized and out-dated education systems follow the lead of corporations in promoting uniformity and conformity (more on hierarchical structures in Entry # 6).
In the classroom, you are compared to others who happen to live in the same area as you. Even if you are a great artist, there may be someone better, which makes you feel second-class (especially where bell-curves are involved). However, in the grand scheme of the world, you may still be incredibly creative and artistically talented. Comparison is the thief of joy.
If you are not at the creative top of your tiny little geographically limited echo chamber, you are suggested to follow the standard path, usually involving math or science. STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) has long been considered more valuable for society than the arts.
Accordingly, many people suppress their creative voice after childhood or have had it suppressed for them since they were not “good enough” to follow a creative life.
While this may have been true in years past, we have technologically evolved as a species to move beyond such conformist ways of thinking.
With the advent of the Internet, our perspective has (or should have) shifted. We can now instantaneously share aspects of our selves with anyone anywhere in the world.
We have entered into a digital renaissance of unfettered creative possibilities.
Think about the Roman Empire for a moment. After the roads had been built and the wars had been won, there was a period of peace leading to a boom in the arts. The Renaissance. People did not need to build or go to war, they could find patrons who valued their creative contributions to the world, allowing the creative individual to pursue their passion and make a living at the same time.
However, to join this renaissance, artists still needed to make a name for themselves. They needed to use their Voice to share their self-expression and get noticed.
Back in the day, this required setting up a stand on the side of the road and hoping that someone within your geographic echo chamber saw and liked the art.
Thankfully, we no longer need to limit ourselves geographically. We can use the Internet to cast our self into the world wide web of opportunity.
Social Media and Mental Health
Voice is really a question of identity and self-expression. Who am I? We want so badly to introduce stability into our lives, yet we are plagued by constantly changing circumstances.
This constantly changing self-perception can form a block for people when they are considering sharing their stories with others, either in person (identity) or online (digital identity).
The development of the self can lead to self-consciousness, worrying about the external self-awareness; how others perceive us.
We experience imposter syndrome, anxiety, social anxiety, and more at the mere thought of sharing an aspect of ourselves online. At the same time, we have FOMO (fear of missing out) at the thought of not sharing our experiences with others.
To further complicate matters, when creating a digital identity (online avatar or character) and developing it, we can be wracked with indecision, trying and failing to come up with a single way to express our many selves.
Which self do I share?
We feel pigeonholed by the options available for our self-expression. The indecision can be so overwhelming that it inhibits us from sharing our stories at all.
Further, when we look to others to see what they have done and how they have expressed themselves, we begin to feel overwhelmed at the sheer greatness of so many other people. Our imposter syndromes flare up: who am I to think others want to hear my story? How can I ever compare to him/her/them?
Even if we get past the imposter syndrome and begin sharing our stories, we get caught in the wave of keeping social media and our audiences happy.
We work to create posts to keep up with the algorithm, trying to pump out content to keep this inhuman monster fed. This burns us out as we question “how will I ever make it?”
The likes, shares, saves, comments (engagement) begin to give us an indication of what our stories are worth to the public. We face a constant tension of maintaining our originality and adapting to the style of posts that get the most likes. A paradox between self and others.
How can we hold onto our authentic selves while also sharing ourselves with others and receiving feedback to improve? Adding another layer of complexity, how do we do so while improving our following to make money in the Internet economy?
Natural Self-Expression Through Story
Now, back to story.
The goal here is to recognize that you are the character. When you communicate with others in the world (setting), you are furthering the plot that is your life.
Your Voice is how you communicate with others to tell your story and bring them into your worldview. Sharing worldviews helps to validate our reality and foster community.
It can be easy to fall into the people-pleasing trap and try to tell stories that others want to hear. This is not the way.
Instead, we want to identify our Voice through our own natural self-expression and find a way to weave our experience into stories that build community and, if desired, income.
Developing the Character
Writing is one of the best ways to find your Voice. It takes your thoughts and creates clarity out of the chaos.
As noted in previous entries, journaling is an excellent way to build metacognition (thinking about thinking) to identify patterns in your reality.
I could go into this topic more, but Anne-Laure Le Cunff just wrote an excellent article on the power and value of writing: Writing is Thinking. I recommend giving this article a read if you would like to go deeper on the power of writing:
“If metacognition is your compass, then writing is your map. By putting down your thoughts on paper, you can navigate them more easily. As such, and especially in our age of information overload, writing is not just a means of expression. It’s a tool for clarity, comprehension, and connection.”
The more you write, the more you will begin to improve your memory and understand the nature of your reality. Patterns will emerge over time.
Analyzing these patterns will help you identify how your actions impact your mood and overall life satisfaction. They can help you find engagement with your life in a meaningful way.
Personally, and I know I am not alone, I find that I am most deeply engaged with my reality and experience when I am in a flow state.
Finding Flow
Flow is a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the first positive psychologists (someone who studied what happens when the brain goes right instead of wrong). Mihaly defined flow as:
“a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it”.
The book: Finding Flow, the Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life is, in my opinion, a must read for modern thinking and happiness. Mihaly based his initial research by studying artists: people who would do something for the sake of merely doing it (painting or drawing). This concept has been extrapolated to all fields, but in general is related to a form of creativity.
The book Stolen Focus dedicates a full section to flow and Mihaly, providing interesting context on the psychologist and how the concept of flow applies to modern life.
Positive Psychology has a good summary of flow, providing details on how to achieve flow more regularly.
For me, I find flow while reading, travelling, in conversation, shooting photos, editing art, playing sports, etc. Each person will find flow in different scenarios, there are not set rules for achieving flow.
No longer are we stuck doing things that we “should” do. Instead, we can build our own world to maximize our engagement with every day life by finding flow more often.
Unfortunately, flow is fickle. It is not the easiest to find. I liken finding flow to playing the lottery. I can sit down at my computer to edit (get a ticket) but whether I find flow (win) or not (lose) will depend on the particular day.
The goal is thus to increase the number of times I play the lottery of finding flow. By setting aside dedicated time each day or week to play the flow-lottery, I can increase my odds of finding flow and deepen my engagement with life.
The 15 minute rule is a great tool to help in this area (typically used for procrastination). Even if you do not particularly feel like it, if you know the activities that generally bring about flow, attempt that activity for 15 minutes to see if you can find flow. If not, no harm, you can move on to the next thing. If yes, you have won the flow lottery and will be fully engaged with your experience.
The more you find flow, the more your skills used during your flow state task will increase. I have noticed massive improvements in creative pursuits by dedicating time to work on them each week, finding flow more often than not as I learn what works for me.
By tracking this progress through journalling, you will be able to identify what works best for you. Over time, you will begin to notice the consistent styles of your experience, how you engage with the world, and the way you craft your words to log your experience. Your Voice.
Furthermore, by journaling in a closed ecosystem, such as in your second brain, you can create an insulated workplace that allows you to develop your creativity within the echo chamber of your own mind.
You can increase your intuition for finding what works for you, more efficiently and effectively locating the areas that improve your original thinking without the distraction of the outside world.
In the modern era of the attention economy and constant distraction, this self-contained mindful and creative world is more powerful than you can imagine.
Next week
Next week, we will continue with the remaining pillars of story: setting and plot.
If we are each the hero of our own story sharing the Voice of our worldview, the worlds we build provide the setting. Plot provides the ruleset for the players interacting in overlapping worlds, playing the game of the creator and knowledge economy.
Stay tuned ✨
P.S. I have opened up the paid tier of Recalibrating. I am saving my most valuable discussions for my paid subscribers. If you are interested in learning more about developing your Voice, using AI, building your world and automated income systems (all as a part of your second brain), please consider upgrading your subscription to paid. Your support means more than you know 😌 ✨
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