Main Character Meditation

Do you sometimes feel the effects of Main Character Syndrome?

The name tells enough, but if you have to, you can look up the term that has gained popularity recently.

This is a good inspiration for a meditation actually. Borrowing from the “Waking Up” app and its guided meditations on searching for the self…

If you are in a place where you are with people, you can sit quietly and become centered with your breath and the feel of wherever you’re sitting. Perhaps you pay attention to the sounds around you.

For this main character meditation, you might notice that you feel like the main character in the movie of your life. After all, your life is unfolding before you, moment by moment.

But this simple exercise goes like this: As you watch other people, do they know that you’re the main character? Do they notice you? Are your thoughts the script that is being narrated for all to hear? If you sit quietly enough, no one should be paying any attention to you at all. And this is a helpful thing.

As Sam Harris says in “Waking Up”, this does not need to turn into a paradoxical puzzle for the brain. It should just be something that you’re curious about for a short moment, then let it go and come back to the anchor that you are used to. But you can keep returning to this concept too. How are you the main character when you are just sitting quietly? What about the person who is running late and rushing to get somewhere? Isn’t she the main character in her drama of being late? How about the child who is playing in front you? Aren’t they the hero of their story, with an arc that you can’t quite anticipate?

Give it a try, let me know if it helps with the syndrome…

There's no place like...

The Wizard of Oz and those ruby slippers

The classic adventure of Dorothy leaving Kansas to visit Oz can be a nice reminder of meditation and mindfulness practice. Many of us can easily finish the sentence, “There’s no place like…” But we can use any anchor that we choose, “home” can be our breath, sensations in the body, sounds, and so on.

All the characters in the story have been analyzed and interpreted to have many different symbols, and it works for us here too. We don’t have to identify with anyone in particular, our mind can take any form it likes. Maybe it’s Dorothy craving for adventure and excitement, our mind can take that form in times of boredom. Maybe it’s the Scarecrow and the mind craving intellectual challenge. The Tin Man and his empathy. The Lion has the fear, and of course the Witch is destructive and vengeful. The Wizard is a con man behind the curtain, and the mind can lie just as much as the Wizard.

We can go on and on, but the ruby slippers, which can represent agency, give us a clue to turn back to home, whatever that home is. Practicing mindfulness is taking that trip to somewhere over the rainbow, but then coming back, returning home.

Myth, Movies & Mindfulness

As a child, I was fascinated by mythology, both traditional and modern. I enjoyed reading Greek myths and Marvel comic books. I was swept up into movies, especially the blockbusters of the 1980s, e.g., Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman and Batman.

Pop culture, for many people, dominates free time. How to stay engaged and entertained? Many of us watch TV shows & movies, read books, or listen to music. Some people discuss and debate likes and dislikes, and reviews and ratings are everywhere. We watch and re-watch, read and re-read, or listen and re-listen. And algorithms throw more and more curated material at us, according to our past consumption behavior.

Exploring meditation has brought to mind some questions related to all of this content, especially in this modern age of on-demand viewing and consumption. Are we reinforcing thoughts about heroic journeys and characters overcoming past hardships that take us out of the present moment? Is even the idea of a main character too focused on the “self” and the ego? How can we enjoy these forms of entertainment as simply entertainment, and not as aspirational ideals or philosophies on how to live our lives? I think as a young person who dreamed of writing stories and making movies, I did base some of my life on myth-making and the hero’s journey.

I want to learn from those with more experience in mindfulness and meditation studies. I want to look at examples from pop culture, and apply a different lens to them, a mindful perspective. With an open mind, and hopefully not too much judgment, I’d like to examine the takeaways that a person might pull from these stories, and see if they can be adjusted or reinterpreted in some way.

Themes, character arcs, even lines of dialogue, are all interesting places to go in this project. I hope a few find this interesting, and even more, I hope I can learn from the wisdom of others along the way.