We All Have Main Character Syndrome

Believe the Diagnosis, Not the Prognosis

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts

—William Shakespeare (from As You Like It, spoken by Jaques)

If it hurts to hear it, look for the truth in it. If it comforts to hear it, look for the lie in it. —Naval Ravikant

Above: Lights, camera, action.

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Each of our lives is a lot like a movie.

As the center of our personal, respective universes, we all think that we play the main character; more Denzel Washington or Tom Hanks than Steve Buscemi, Edward Norton, and the like.

This is the spotlight effect at work: our innate tendency to forget that although we are the center of our own worlds, we are not at the center of everyone else's.

Taken at face value, this appears logical. Who doesn’t consider himself more protagonist than foil in the story of his own life?

However, considered seriously, it is absurd.

To paraphrase Morgan Housel, your personal experiences make up maybe 0.000000001% of what’s happened in the world, but nearly 100% of how you think the world works.

The upshot of this is a lifelong emotional arc:

Immaturity is suffering from Main Character Syndrome.

Growing up is realizing you have a rather bad case of it.

Maturity is treating it with a healthy dose of humility.

Put differently, in the context of the silver screen:

Immaturity is thinking you are Meryl Streep.

Growing up is realizing you have no more than a small part in a myriad of different films.

Maturity is understanding that there are literally billions of whole other movies out there in which you have no role whatsoever.

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Man has always thought himself more protagonist than foil, however, this has only gotten worse.

What should we expect from a world where ~92M selfies are taken daily; smartphone users spend around 7 minutes taking selfies every day; and millennials are forecast to capture around 25,700 selfies over their lifetime?

Hell, that selfies even exist, let alone represent a daily cultural phenomenon, would have Narcissus rolling in his (watery) grave. But I digress:

The above seems a bit ridiculous, but it stopped me in my tracks.

It's subtle, but disorienting and essential: you spend 100% of your time with yourself, however others' perception of you is faced upon the comparably infinitesimal amount of time they spend with you. 

It begs the questions:

• How many people have we met for the first and last time, where we played a small role in another’s much larger life story?

• How many times has a ten minute conversation or thirty second run-in constituted 100% of our experience, perception, and judgment of someone? 

• How many times has the shoe been on the other foot?

• How often is this done to us?

The diagnosis is grim. The prognosis, terminal.

What to do?

First, we ought heed warnings from both the Bible and the big screen:

• Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. —Matthew 7:1-5

• [Y]ou presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right? … You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? —Good Will Hunting

Second, we would all live a bit more happily ever after if we gulped down a healthy dose of humility in order to produce the magical byproducts of patience and grace.

Humility allows us not to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less. By drinking deep of it, we open the door to the realization that everyone we know is doing the best they can, stuck 100% of the time with selves about which we know nothing, navigating scripts and plots we could never even imagine.

With a little luck, this patience and grace allows us to internalize, with relief and a burst of joy, that our lives are not about us. Rather, they are mosaics of everyone we have ever known, seen, talked to, loved—even for a heartbeat—made up of so many people, parts of whom remain even after they leave.

Sometimes you’ll be the star, other times the supporting actor or stunt double. However, in our short time on stage, we ought remember that no show is complete without its entire cast of characters.

Every scene—day in and day out—give the performance of a lifetime so that others might be proud to have your name in their credits.

Bring your A-game and break a leg; a five-second cameo may be all the screentime you get on this Earth or in another’s life.

And yet, the right cameo at the right time can make the whole damn movie.

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Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter X.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom