The Protagonist’s Journey: “We are not prisoners of that room”

A reflection on Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet”

If we imagine our being as a room of any size, it seems that most of us know only a single corner of that room, a spot by the window, a narrow strip on which we keep walking back and forth. That gives a kind of security. But isn’t insecurity with all its dangers so much more human?

We are not prisoners of that room.

In their life leading up to Fade In, the Protagonist has cobbled together a semblance of a life. They are — in the words of Joseph Campbell — “just making do.” Metaphorically, they find themselves in a room. What they know of the room is so little. A corner. A spot by the window. A narrow strip they frequent as they walk through their life… back and forth… back and forth.

They need to change, even if they do not know it. This is not an authentic life. This is not their authentic life.

The beliefs they have stitched together… the behaviors they have adopted… the coping skills and defense mechanisms they have generated to create some sense of security…

No matter how safe they feel… it is a false reality. The walls which provide a feeling of comfort against the uncertainties of The Beyond have created a kind of jail cell restraining the Protagonist from their authentic way of being.

The first movement in the Protagonist’s journey is to realize the room is not their prison. That movement begins when…

Something happens.

The Call To Adventure. Inciting Incident.

This event, this Herald casts a flicker of light across the walls, floor, and ceiling of this room. The Protagonist is shocked to realize…

This room is bigger than I knew.

This fact may frighten the Protagonist. This moment upends what is Normal and provides a glimpse of what appears to be the Super-Normal.

It feels dangerous.

The Protagonist knows the Normal, knows their inauthentic life. And yet…

Something from within reaches up… reaches out… and calls to them.

Go. Do. Move.

As they move out of the shadows, something glints through the darkness.

A door and its doorknob.

The Protagonist senses beyond that threshold lies a path. Not yet marked. Not yet known. Not yet mapped. But it is their path which leads them toward who they are to become. Their fate. Their narrative imperative.

They take a step toward the door.

How had I not seen it before? It was there all along.

Scared. Fright. Racing heart.

Why am I moving toward the door?

No, no, no. Stay here. The corner. The window. The narrow strip.

My narrow strip.

The Protagonist knows this place. This is their room, their comfort zone.

And yet…

The light… this sudden luminescence… reflects off the doorknob…

It draws the Protagonist closer like a moth to a flame.

Danger. Uncertainty.

Yet stepping closer… closer… closer…

Hand. On. Doorknob.

Suddenly…

Open.

Strange light… sounds… feel…

A new place… beyond the room.

I am free… but now… What?

This is the first stage of the Protagonist’s journey, what we may call Act One. The Old World. The Call To Adventure. Crossing The Threshold to…

The Protagonist takes those first few tentative step uncertain about their fate, but now they know they can no longer stay where they were in their life leading up to Fade In…

There is something out there which is speaking to something in there…

From within, their Authentic Self clambering out of the unconscious into the light of the conscious…

Setting them on the path to become who they already are.

This dynamic, this movement, this First Act is innate to almost every Protagonist as they embark on their journey.

Something happens which conveys to them an essential truth…

I am not a prisoner of that room.