When I was a theatre major way back when, one of the tools we used for character development was called packing. One of my professors, John Gulley, was huge into packing. This is where you take the character that you are given in a script and create a whole person from that. Yes, you know the basics of who the character is but in order to connect more personally with the character, you create his history. You create the story from where the character came from. What made him who he is today. You give the character qualities based on the history that you create. And this all has to be supported by the text. For instance, I could not say that Romeo was an alien life form coming to earth to discover the secrets of teenage love because that is not what Shakespeare has written. But I could create past experiences Romeo has had because of the Capulet/Montague feud that have affected his life and help him to become the young man that he is at the start of the play. That's packing. When I had my first big role in theatre at UNCG, I knew every aspect of the character. I had created a backstory that made sense and fit who Doug was. It was fun and added layers to my performance.
That is what I want to do with my life in a way. Not completely though because I will not be making up my history because it is already there. But I do need to use my personal history to lay the foundations of my future self. It's not like that is not already in progress every day. Our pasts shape our lives. I just want to recognize it more. I think about the events in my life that have truly shaped who I am today and I want to use those experiences in a positive way to create a better version of myself. I think about the kind of person I am striving to be, the qualities I want to see in myself that I have not really attained yet and use the packing tool to give me goals to fill in those gaps. Of course I would love for others to see those qualities too, but my main goal is for me. It may sound silly to think of oneself as a character in a play, but it makes sense in my mind.
This is all about becoming a better version of myself. It is not that I believe I am currently a bad version of myself. Not at all. I am liking myself more and more every day. I am enjoying spending time with myself. I just want to live my best life possible. When changes happen, both good and bad, I will be in a more complete place to roll with the punches and use those changes to be the person I want to be. We shall see how it goes.
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