Handicaps and Flaws

Generally speaking, interesting characters have to overcome obstacles.  That’s why Superman bores me.  It’s hard for the most powerful being around to face challenges that don’t immediately turn absurd.  Something writers think about when developing those characters is whether an internal obstacle is a flaw or a handicap.  Don’t confuse the two—a flaw can stem from a handicap, but a handicap itself is never a flaw.  Let me explain.

Handicaps are limitations that a character has no choice in, but likely has to work around in pursuit of their goals.  Examples include paralysis, mental illnesses, loss of limbs, etc.  Flaws, however, are personal defects fully within the character’s ability to change.  Examples here are rudeness, ignorance, pridefulness, etc.  So when I say a flaw can stem from a handicap, think of Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump.  After losing his legs, the good Lieutenant became bitter and unpleasant.  The flaw was not that he lost his legs, it was his new outlook based on that event.  We like him as a character because with Gump’s help, he overcame that flaw and got a new lease on life shrimping with his friend.

This subject hit closer to home for me this weekend as I considered my own minor handicap.  I have relatively significant motion sickness, ranging from unpleasant to debilitating depending on the activity.  This handicap has dogged me my entire life.  My dad likes to tell stories about how as a child, I’d consistently vomit multiple times whenever we took extended car trips to visit family.  That’s the reason I’m the primary driver in my family—my wife knows I’m still liable to get sick if I’m in the passenger seat.

It goes far beyond carsickness, of course.  My motion sickness is responsible for me having to abandon my first career choice in the military as a pilot (they tend to frown on projectile vomiting at the controls).  It’s also the reason I haven’t pursued a slew of activities that I love to do.  That list contains the following: skydiving, jet skiing, paragliding, SCUBA, surfing, roller coasters, and literally anything involving a boat.  As of this week, I can now add kiteboarding and virtual reality to that list.

It’s a hard thing to desperately want to do something while knowing your body will make you miserable if you try it.  Yes, I recognize that my handicap isn’t nearly as traumatic or restricting as many others.  But it is an impairment that restricts me from a host of different actions that I would otherwise do, so it has an impact on my life and those around me. 

And please, no helpful suggestions of “just take Dramamine!”  Believe me, I’ve tried.  When you’re curled up on the floor of your hotel room on your birthday praying for the room to stop spinning hours after your latest failed boat excursion while using prescription-strength anti-nausea patches, you lose a little bit of faith in medicine’s ability to assist.

Handicaps are what they are, and usually there’s no way to fix them.  Flaws, though, that we can work on.  This is where my thoughts went this week as I scratched another two activities off my list of potential hobbies.  Every time something like this happens, I tend to sink into a funk.  Wallowing in self-pity over my inner ear issues accomplishes nothing, but I still give it a try just in case.  Thus, my flaw comes to the surface.

Does the situation suck?  Undoubtably.  Does that mean I have to act like it does?  Absolutely not.  There’s a difference between acknowledging the reality of a situation and allowing it to gain control over your attitude.  The former is required to regain forward momentum and plan effectively.  The latter bogs you down in a morass that will restrict your every thought and movement until it becomes as crippling as the handicap itself.  One enlightens and emboldens, the other restricts and consumes.

I’m done letting it consume me.