This line is pretty, and apt: "you must make characters you love and do terrible things to them. Otherwise, you will never discover what they are made of."

": is it better to exist in potentia, unrealized, yet perfect, or to live an imperfectly flawed and shattered existence? Which is truer, which is more real? What does this say for my existence?"

I think it's better to realize things, as flawed and imperfect as they may be. If you're honest about what is you can work to make the reality more in line with the idea. Even great artistic/literary geniuses will tell you they never make the work come out as beautifully as it does in their own mind. Which is well and good, but if you don't ever try to get it out of your mind you're the only one who gets to see it.

Which would be a shame.