Rose Baker - failure on the personal journey

    Something that has often frustrated me in the experience of growing up is that there is a window of opportunity on some lessons, and the ability to have some needs fulfilled. When you know what you need to grow and you aren't able to provide it to yourself, you are forced to watch as the experience of the absence of that experience/stage changes from pangs like hunger, to missing what could have been, and finally reaching a point where continuing to seek that lesson or that need is behind you. You may never have "gotten on the train," but you have still grown past it. Is that part (or the lack of it) cemented in your being? A few times I've attempted to go back to one of these experiences, and while some people seem to be able to (and communicate the feeling of "healing their inner child") it doesn't have an effect except to force me to acknowledge the point I've progressed to in maturation, perspective, and goals.

    In fictional narratives, divergences from a character's intended path serve a purpose. Either it comes as result of their failure to adapt and learn, or as a rebellion against a "fated" path and successfully forging their own path. A character always becomes "who they were meant to be" in the context of the story. If they fail in their path, or create their own path, their actions are systematically relevant to the plot. A character's journey can be full of failure and regret, but we typically see their journey as building to an archetype, a specific expression of the character we know.

    As a living person, we are eternally unfinished, and the person we become can feel more like the compiled outcome of happenstance than a solid, meaningful state of identity.