1.3 Give Your Flowers To The Dead

Because The Living Tend To Remain Moving Targets

The Dream I Never Knew The End Of

So that is one of the telling signs of a failed character: You wander the world with the mark of an eternal punishment upon you. 

But that doesn't explain why or how you fail as a character.

We hear about failed companies, failed presidencies, failed states. We diagnose component failure, engine failure, launch failure, parts failure, organ failure. And they all tend to fail for pretty much the same reason--- the part, component, subassembly, person, organization, whatever--- is unable to hold up under the burden placed upon it, crumbles under the load, and stops functioning. Not because of criminal intent or moral turpitude, but because it was unfit for the job it was assigned to do.

There was a defect, a crack unseen and undetected, until undue stress was placed upon it. Then it shit the bed.

Character defects work in pretty much the same way. I put myself, or allowed myself to be placed, in situations for which I had never been properly stress-tested--- college, Semmy, marriage, fatherhood--- and so just stopped functioning properly. Or maybe I never did at all.

5.5.5 —Harvey Oxenhorn

Semoira was the one dream I never knew the end of.