I’m the hero of my story. I’m going to regularly frame myself as the hero, frame others as antagonistic, NPC (non-player character), dumb, or with mysterious and evil motives. While doing that I’m going to frame myself as having pure, good and legible motive to others and the rest of the world. From my perspective it’s obvious that these actions are both justified, valid and the best I could do while at the same time your actions are irrational, arbitrary, ineffective and wrong.
Everyone does this. This is a frame that minds take on. They find the fastest explanation that comes to mind and completes the need to investigate and understand what has happened.
If I take the hero frame as correct or incorrect, even doing that binary dichotomy is limited and not quite right.
One of the reasons we take the hero frame is that it’s nice to feel like the hero. It’s nice to feel justified and successful and like my actions are valid and correct and support the side of all that is good in the world.
What we miss in taking the hero frame is that within each and every other person exists a depth and complexity that mirrors our own. As deep as we can go, as meaningful as we can have an experince, other people (while they may not always choose to be doing so), have the capacity to be having as meaninful an experience as we are.
It’s often said that you never know which moments in someone’s childhood are going to be the pivotal, life changing moments that massively impact their lives. you never know which hero quest they are on and how they are making their journey through the world.
It is because of this particular sense of unknown surrounding the journeys of others that it is necessary to always respect other people’s paths and what they find meaningful.
Just as you would want them to do for your journey, make space for other people to be the hero of their own story. Or at least a star figure.
Good luck on your journey.
