@selfdeclared confessed : 13!
from: 42 character development questions | no longer accepting
13. How do they greet the world — what is their typical attitude towards life? How does it differ in different circumstances, or towards different subjects? Why do they take these attitudes, and why do they change? How do these tend to be expressed?
he greets life with an easy sort of confidence. one does not speak to him and sense much unease about his role in the world, about his mere presence on Earth. he is here and therefore he belongs, soon settles into the crowds more skeptical of him thanks to such a convincing and charismatic aura. not because he boasts it --- if anything, he blends more easily simply because he doesn’t boast much at all.
he is quietly sure of himself. sure of the plans God has for him and the trajectory of his life. maybe a little too sure, in some respects. has a little too much faith that everything that happens around him is all for the best, save maybe a few hard-drawn lines. because he can be all-too-quick to accept the unacceptable being laid bare before him. has trouble labeling the horrible as just horrible, no silver lining to be found. excusing it if he initially thought it good. until it no longer benefits him and his plans, no longer benefits God’s plans. GOD’S EVER-CHANGING WILL is the true deciding factor of his approach to life and all of the things that happen around him. and in this respect, he expresses himself in a web of contradictions. over and over, to convince himself and those around them that this must be so. reassurances that God does not negate personal responsibility can quickly degrade into excuses for himself, for others, if he believes it is all part of His plan. the end will surely justify his means. will justify GOD’s means.
for most of his adult life, he has taken the attitude that he is where he needs to be. that it all happens for a reason. now, he struggles to grapple with the truth: an old man in his state never should have been sent on pilgrimage. alone. he never should have been able to stumble into the mouth of a beast. alone. it had nothing to do with God’s plan for him, and everything to do with oversight on the part of his congregation. their ultimate fates? everything to do with his own inability to take the horrors of life at face value, and his refusal to give up on the family he so desperately wanted a chance with.
some 84 years later, he finally learns the answer to the question that led him deep down the path of his faith and career: why do terrible things happen? because life, sometimes, is just that. fucking terrible.
