the chi of the young is very unstable.
-Louise Howard

Concentric Rings
a theory on the mechanics of settling

Visualise a personality as a set of concentric rings.

Not just five or six rings, but hundreds upon thousands of rings forming this enormous target-shaped construction. Each ring represents a different facet of this complex personality - nothing so broad as 'patience' or 'interests', but rather 'level of patience when tired', 'interest in romantic films with minimal humour', and so forth.

When a person is born, most of those rings are in movement. They are swinging wildly, aimlessly, as the person has yet to have enough experiences and growth to have formed a solid personality. However, some form of a personality will have developed, as even newborns have their quirks; a few of those rings have 'clicked into place'.

As the person grows, experiences life and learns new things, more of those rings will gradually begin to click into place, and that solid personality will begin to emerge. The person will become primarily either optimistic or pessimistic, patient or impatient, extroverted or introverted. For example, though there is still plenty of room for change, by the time a child is ten years old it is generally fairly noticable whether they're more inclined towards humanities or sciences or arts.

When that person settles, when they reach the point in their life where their daemon will be able to take a fixed form that represents them, it is not that all the rings have stopped moving. Some will merely twitch back and forth, while others will continue with sweeping movements. Human beings are fluid creatures, after all, and adaptablity is our core nature. A person will never become a rigid stone structure. But when they settle, it is simply that enough of those rings have clicked into place to form a personality that can be defined by a single animal.