# Are you the player or the character? Momo Maximilian Feichtinger · Education · planted 2026-09-03, last grown 2026-09-03 · 5 min · https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/spieler-oder-charakter **You are the player, not the character. In a video game you are worth no less while your figure is on level one, and no more once it reaches level a hundred. That dissolves the contradiction personal development otherwise rests on: you can say honestly what your character cannot do yet and still be whole.** ![A game controller in two hands, in front of it a small figure with a backpack facing a dark cave entrance](https://zukunftbilden.eu/assets/denken/spieler-oder-charakter.webp) *The mental model: the player designs, the character walks in. The worth sits with the player.* The contradiction runs like this. To grow, you have to admit you are not enough right now. That same sentence destroys the belief that you are already whole. Cut either half and you land in one of two dead ends. Either you make peace with every weakness, never move, and call it self-acceptance. Or you hang your worth on the next goal and are nobody in between two of them. > worth is not based on the level of the character > > Momo in the livestream "Other paradoxes of personal development", 2019 ## What the player does, what the character does The split is a division of labour. The player designs and stays calm. The character walks in and gets wet. They need each other, and they do different work. ### What the player does, what the character does - The player looks honestly. He names what the figure can do and what it lacks, without prettifying and without taking offence. - The player picks the next challenge. He knows where the figure stands and therefore which cave comes next. - The player carries the worth. He does not shrink when the figure loses or grow when it wins. - The character practises. He has limited tools, plays to his strengths and builds the weak parts up slowly. - The character may fail. A lost round costs time, not dignity. - The character gets redesigned. Changing yourself reshapes the figure, not the person behind it. > you have to redesign your character which is not redesign who you are because who you are is the player > > Momo in the livestream "Other paradoxes of personal development", 2019 ## Boredom is a hint The model carries a diagnosis I still like. Back then I watched someone play. Ahead of him lay a cave he had died in many times. So he stayed outside and did small side quests until he got bored. Boredom is what finally sent him in. We behave the same way outside the game. Side quests keep you busy and move the figure up no level at all. The conclusion runs against the times. Boredom is the condition under which somebody enters the next cave. Anyone able to wipe it away at any moment stays outside for good. A screen that never gets boring keeps a child in front of the cave. ## A cave that fits the level The second practical part is choosing the size. Attacking the largest monster first looks brave and throws you back to the start. What works is the edge: just above what the figure can currently do. So you have to know where it stands, which makes the honest assessment the practical part of the model. > you can best decide what the next cave is that you have to tackle to level up > > Momo in the livestream "Other paradoxes of personal development", 2019 That is exactly where the model reaches its limit, and research showed me that only later. We have no access to the processes behind our decisions, we supply fluent reasons afterwards. Judge the level of your figure by listening inward alone and you get a good story instead of a measurement. What helps stands in [Why is looking inward not enough?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/warum-selbstbeobachtung-taeuscht) Write down what you expect, put a date under it, read it again later. The player needs a logbook. ## What became of it at the school Six years later the Freie Schule Salzburg runs a stage system that makes the same split, only without monsters. The maturity stages at paideia describe how much responsibility a child carries. They do not describe the child worth. That is why they have started at a stage zero nobody has to earn since 20 August 2026, and why the maturity track stays private. That is the player translated into school rules, see [Is belonging something you have to earn?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/zugehoerigkeit-und-verantwortung) The wording shifted too. For the way from one stage to the next the school says milestone. A milestone shows that a conversation is worth having and makes no demand. When a mentor sees a milestone, it becomes a point for the Monday conversation. And criticism gets the same calm the player has: an objection hits the figure, see [When is criticism a gift?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/kritik-als-geschenk) ## One model among many The video ends on a sentence aimed at me: do not follow the heart of a stranger, and I am a stranger too. A mental model stays a tool. It earns its place while it explains a case better than whatever you had before, and it belongs on the shelf the moment it stops. That is the whole point of the open book [World Modeling](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/world-modeling): to know which picture of the world is currently in use. The video game comparison is one of those pictures. It helps with self-worth and with challenge. About grief, obligation and other people it says nothing, and it is not meant to. ### Sources and links - [Is belonging something you have to earn?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/zugehoerigkeit-und-verantwortung) - [Why is looking inward not enough to know yourself?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/warum-selbstbeobachtung-taeuscht) - [When is criticism a gift and when is it just fear?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/kritik-als-geschenk) - [World Modeling, the open book](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/world-modeling) · How people map the world in their heads and how to sharpen that map. ## Margin notes - **Randnotiz** At one point in the video I say we are all parents of ourselves and therefore all in the middle of maturing. Back then it was an aside. Today that exact thought stands in a school as a stage system. - **Verknüpft** [Is belonging something you have to earn?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/zugehoerigkeit-und-verantwortung), [Why is looking inward not enough?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/warum-selbstbeobachtung-taeuscht), [World Modeling, the open book](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/world-modeling), [Paideia for schools](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/paideia) - **Beleg** Livestream "Other paradoxes of personal development", 27 September 2019, 35:35, in English. The video is unlisted, so there is no link here. The quotations come from minutes 12, 17 and 25. The decision on stage zero dates from 20 August 2026. ## How this note grew - 2026-09-03: Planted from the livestream "Other paradoxes of personal development", 2019. --- Source: https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/spieler-oder-charakter · Feed: https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/feed.xml