When I write inventory, I am seeking to lay bare the ego's mechanisms. The ego spins narratives where I'm the innocent victim and others are stupid, mean, selfish, or demonic. If I'm in an 'ego space', the inventory will simply serve to amplify and dramatise the scenario by distorting the contributions each person made to the situation. Inventory should deflate rather than inflate.
Ideally, inventory should be:
- Clear to my imagined Step Five-hearer
- Specific enough to paint a picture
- Not so specific 'you had to be there' to understand it
- Concise enough not to lose the hearer in detail
- Not so concise that it's bloodless and conveys nothing but generalities
It should also stand up to scrutiny. If the hearer of the inventory asks questions, and the sands shift, the story changes, and the truth starts to slide round, back to the drawing board.