The game of life?
You can only play the hand that you are dealt, and there are plenty of bad hands out there, vital cards that were not even in the deck, life is unfair and there are no restarts, the surprising thing is that no one is actually completely happy with what they have got, there is no one sitting there smugly knowing that they are going to win as there is no agreement on the rules or win conditions. Two's could be the trump card, seven's could reverse your fortune, and Aardvarks could turn it into a game of chess, the rules change and if too many people learn of a rule that reverses the nature of that rule, we are blind men juggling for our lives whilst rock music is blaring, and if we ever finish the game, we lose. Which begs the question how do we play such a game, when there is no audience to impress, judges to appeal to, it is just you, so be you, love who you are, define your success by how little you have to compromise yourself, how much responsibilities you take on in the face of such futility, and whether you can find meaning in it.
There are realities of life that can not be ignored, we can look to Maslow's pyramids of needs, at the bottom or vital layer there is shelter, water, food, sleep, next there is security, health, on top of which is relationships and health (self care), then skilfulness, a mastery that is value and recognised by others, until we get to the summit which is being the best version of yourself. This is a useful model as a starting point but it does ignore the why, why are we playing the game in the first place, sure self-actualisation is nice, if it is in your grasp take it, it is a good achievement to have, but what purpose does it serve, it feels good to have climbed the mountain and you can say you play the cards you had as best you could, though are we just about how much of our potential can we realise. This seems a little like we are just trying to get the highest score in a game, but does this really matter?
The ancients believed what mattered was how you died, a good death defined your life, to give your life for your family or tribe, to serve a greater good, to have dignity, overcome fear and face the end with the whole of your being. There was a lot of death back then, it came early and often, and for most it was pointless, you could die from a cold, an infected scratch, exposure, childbirth, it was easy to die but difficult to die in a good way, so maybe it was an achievement, there was a purpose to preparing yourself to try and die in a good manner. However there is a certain final exam element to the whole thing, it was pass or fail and it did not really matter to you after you had been examined, as you were dead, there was probably a lot of big talk about how you were going to do it and then the reality was bloody and terrifying, it served to make life more tolerable when all your fates were grim.
We have more now, but less simplicity, there is no simple markers for a life well lived (apart from your own opinion), there is the money game where the winner is the one with the most, however that is a poor game to play as there is seven billion people playing it and only one winner, and even then you only win it for awhile until the next person comes along. It seems like a game where you either lose in the beginning, the middle or in the end, the same is true for all sports, talents and achievements, there can only be one winner, world champion or record holder, the only purpose seems to be the journey itself and again fulfilling your potential, another exercise in getting the highest score.
There is the game of giving, be it your time, love, care, it is hard to be critical of that kind of approach it is free of many vices, it looks worthy but you have to be mindful of your motives, if it is just the appearance that you are interested in, it can be a manifestation of vanity and pride, to be the best at giving of your energy. It has to be played carefully with skill, compassion and elegance especially in regards to yourself, you have to care for yourself before you can care for other (hence the warning to put your own air mask on first before helping others on a plane), it can drain away your energy from other important things. It can be paid for at the expense of those who you are responsible for, families ignored so that charities are supported, human rights at the cost your child's happiness, it is difficult to balance and the worthy glow is addictive, you can end up giving more than you have, and even worse your expectations might never be met, we might expect love in return that we never get, true charity does not have a return.
That is unless you take the view that we are all just one beings divide into billions of different ways of viewing our existence, that we are vehicles for the experiencing the world for the divine, and it is indifferent to pain or pleasure, it is just greedy for the experience of living through agents of cause and effect, we are pawns being moved about on the board that is life. It asks us to believe that we consented to everything that happens because we love the ride even the terrifying parts, which seems hard to believe. Perhaps the saving grace of this approach is if there is a purpose to this journey, if there is it is well hidden under the suffering that seems to be such a part of the way to this blissful future and requires a lot of faith in the flow of events that seem to be heading in the opposite direction and towards darkness.
It might be the darkest before dawn, but how many false dawns can we endure before hope is lost, if the underlying reality of our world is constant change that causes discomfort, emptiness, that everything is interconnected apart from ourselves that do not exist. You have to ask why we have such illusions, what is the purpose of deliberately making this so hard to see that you have to spend a lifetime to move past that deception. If there is no purpose it means that there is no game, that all we have is the moment that we are living and that we have to make the best of it.
Which is strangely the same conclusion that you would make if there was purpose, if there is a grand plan to everything, that we are build towards something wonderful, that is beyond one lifetime and our perception. We could be the nursery grounds for a greater collective consciousness that takes a billion years to conceive, that takes great sacrifice in choosing something better, that our suffering has purpose for our future, are we the soldiers willingly holding the line until the good stuff turns up and is it possible to hear the Calvary approaching already.
What gives me the greatest hope is when I meditate on loving kindness, sometimes a sense of connectedness emerges that is beauty and peaceful, quite unlike any normal everyday kind of feeling, it gives me hope and joy which worth having on their own. The strange thing is that I have no sense of wanting it back or wish to revisit it, it is enough to have experienced it, to know it exists and that it is possible, because why would I want that alone, I want everyone to have that, especially my friends and family, I want that experience to be the default normal one that endures from one moment to the next and all the ones to come, and I think it starts with finding the joy in each moment whether it contains pleasure or pain. It the same conclusion as the worst interpretation of life, it invites us to live for the moment because now is when you can have an effect on the world, it is the only time that you can have an effect upon.
It is only by having hope that you can believe that by living the best moment in the present it will lead to the best outcome for the future, hope gives us permission to laugh in the face of death, to find joy in suffering and meaning in such a small life, which by all mathematical logic should be meaningless. However if a single butterfly can create a hurricane, imagine what a eight billion beauty beating their wings together could do, maybe it could even change our reality to a game that brings us joy in everyway. That is why I choose to live with hope, to go forwards with purpose even if I do not know for sure what it is, it is enough to do my part, to turn up and fully engage in whatever it is that I am doing, to trust the path that opens up in front of me without needing to know where it is leading, I have hope and I want to share it with you.
