1 result for (book:tps5 AND heading:"delet session septemb 6 1978" AND stemmed:hero)
[... 12 paragraphs ...]
He does not have a nine-to-five job. He is constantly in midst of drama, fleeing for his life. The system supports him, and it would not do so under other conditions. He has some financial sustenance, then, some freedom, as he understands it, and he is the hero, the good guy who is, however, seemingly at the mercy of his enemies.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
Any purpose is better than none, and any intended personalized threat is better than an existence in which no life is important enough to be individually threatened, so these imagined threats serve to convince our young man that his life must have meaning or purpose—otherwise others would not be so intent on destroying him. He is clothed and fed. He lives with adventure, threat, and must forever be on guard. He sees himself fleeing across the continent—again, a hero in a vast drama, a romantic picture. He does not want allies, for he dramatizes his isolation.
Ruburt is correct: he could be a hero of a short story, and so he appears to himself. It is his way of gaining stature in a world he believes is meaningless. He is afraid that he has few abilities of any kind, so he must of course take steps to see that they are never put to the test in the physical world—hence, some disaster or another always prevents the great creativity that he says he has to offer.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
I am doing my best to explain. I do not want you to think I am without compassion. Novelists create heroes who must overcome obstacles. Some such characters are brave and upright; some of your heroes are scoundrels. Then there are, say, the hunchback of Notre Dame or Frankenstein. In your living you literally bring your ideas to life. You form the story of your life. You are involved in a study of the full dimensions of experience, in the interpretation of events themselves. You are involved in a living process—but one of such multidimensional activity that sometimes you see of course but one chapter in a saga whose full complexion is far different.
Give me a moment.... A novelist, being himself or herself writing a book, will nevertheless imaginatively live the actions of all of its characters—the villain, the hero, the madman, the saint or whatever—and a true creative gestalt is involved. Then in the author’s mind the characters will interact. The author may know the book’s end, or allow the characters themselves to work out their own solutions. Here we will call the author the whole self, and the characters are real. They are themselves. They follow their own unique intents. They are not coerced, say. The plot is left open, but in the deepest terms the whole self, through its personalities, probes deeply into the meaning of life in all of its manifestations.
[... 21 paragraphs ...]