Lesson 1: Actualization
Actualization means that when something is done, it is done for a purpose. One must have a battle plan, an objective, some aim by which to guide the growth of their character. Without actualization, one ends up wandering aimlessly, and the product of that is boring and uninspiring. Great people go through life with some dream of grandeur. I want you to think about what your character’s dream, objective, or goal is, and I want you to write your post with that as a long range plan. This will ultimately dictate such things as personality, decision-making, and storyline.
As a reminder: your character begins unconscious, awakening with no memory of who he is.A heavy wind rushes over the acropolis, screaming as it races past the immense bronze pillars supporting the glass roof of this new, yet surprisingly empty, architectural beauty. Seven tiers of black marble stairs lead up the hillside toward it, a splendid jewel backlit by the fading daylight. The cliff drops away into tumultuously rolling breakers on three sides, leaving only a slender path for the stairs to wind down the precipice. It is upon these frigid, gloomy steps that a man sits, eyeing something moving on the near-vertical rocks. It is dark, perhaps a large bird. Yes, a bird; an enormous vulture. It is pecking at a long piece of tattered brown cloth blowing wildly from the scarp. The scene grips the man, interesting him far more than the chill creeping up his spine from his stoop. His eyes narrow and he continues to hone in on what is transpiring below: the cloth is caught to something, the very thing at which the bird of prey is scraping its bloody beak across. It is a man, he realizes, perhaps more of a corpse now than a human being. Still, the thought of leaving him there leaves a sour taste in the observer’s stomach, so on impulse he heaves a large stone down at the carrion—it immediately flutters away. Then begins the grueling task of safely descending the cliff face, and the even more intrepid object of retrieving the unconscious form.