Life is bleak

The brevity of human life

I have a plan, you see. I’ve always been fond of the idea of playing games. Although I don’t find games fun, that is because all the sense of achievement and progress one receives from a game is virtual.

This, is what irks me the most. Spending HOURS UPON HOURS to finish a plotline, get an incredibly rare achievement/collectible and all you have left is maybe a bunch of pixels on a screen, forever whittling down your achievement into a random assortment of bits and bytes in the blackbox we know as a computer.

So, what will you do about it?

Why not make life the game?

If you look at it closely, life is truly the most intricate game known to mankind. We spawn in random locations, have random stats and skills assigned upon character creation, and there are so many side quests and main plotlines that it gets overwhelming to put it all into perspective.

Now comes the question, what is the end goal? Is there a main quest that we need to conquer? Is there some overarching purpose that we as the all-intelligent human beings of the universe have to pursue?

The Main Quest

There is none.

I repeat, there is none. Life, is inherently meaningless. This is not an opinion, neither it is my belief, it is a fact. How, you ask, I speak such blasphemy?

It’s simple, really. Meaning is a human construct. For anything to have meaning, a question must exist. Why a question? Because meaning quite literally means definition. In the context of the english language, at least.

But Mr. Blasphemer, surely THAT meaning and the one we are talking about is different? Right ? … Right ?!!

What we generally associate with the word meaning, when talking about things that matter to us is more aligned with the term valuable.

Life is meaningful! All lives are valuable.

Delusions of the weak-minded.

Things such as meaning, value, importance are all valid concepts ONLY when there is a context attached. To be more precise, a reference.

Value requires a reference point for comparison. For instance, Rs. 100 is more valuable than Rs. 10, and 4 kg of rice is more valuable than 1 kg of rice.

These examples use numbers to quantify value. But what about non-quantifiable comparisons, such as time spent with family versus time spent in the office? Here, the reference point is personal. Time spent with family is more valuable to YOU, which may not be true for everyone else.

You is the because (hehe)

Jokes aside, in situations that need to be compared, but cannot be quantified, you become the reference point. Looking at the previous quote, time spent with family is more valuable to YOU. That is most certainly not the case for everyone else. Facts are universally true, but the previous statement is only locally true, i.e., true for you.

So, now that we have covered all the attack points for disproving my statement of the fact -

Life is inherently meaningless

Angry mob: WAIT. DAMN.

Angry mob: you said inherently, which means that by itself, life has no meaning, only when context is added (human perspective), we are able to say that life is meaningful.

Angry mob: You got us, Mr. Blasphemer. Now make your case.

Closing the tangent

Given that life is inherently meaningless, the meaning we find is a product of our human perspective. This means our values and beliefs are context-specific, not universal truths.

All we believe in is only “true” given the fact that we are human beings.

Yes, whatever values we assimilate in order to define the creed that we follow, whether it be justice, faith, altruism, nihilism, whatever it may be, are only consequences of being a human being. True because we are humans, not because they are “right”, or the real “truth” on how the world works.

But, what has all this got to do with games? Why try to shape our worldview with this long rant on how there is no right or wrong, only a different perspective?

The Game

All games have rules, rules meaning limitations on the actions that characters in the game can take. Again, all games have rules. How can you verify whether something is a rule or not? Well, as long as you can do the action, it is not a rule. If you are incapable of doing it, it is a valid rule.

So, think about it, what are the rules in this game of life? Well, all actions that you are physically incapable of doing. Everything else is a move.

Manipulation? valid. Violence? valid. Altruism? valid. Capitalism? valid.

If it can be done, it is a valid move.

Players might object to moves, stop/penalize you from doing certains things, but they are still players. There is no universal morality that keeps you in check. People, to the universe, are not as significant as we think we are.

We are only valuable given the context of humanity. Locally relevant, universally irrelevant.

So, is it all meaningless?

Again, we are not universal beings. Forget the universe, we don’t understand ourselves. I just wanted to expand your perspective. It might be meaningless, but given our mortality, isn’t it still… fun?

That is why we play games, isn’t it? So what if life is meaningless, so what if there is no justice, no true love or affection, no salvation from sins? Will you stop playing this game called life?

The answer is no. You’ll play. You’ll keep playing till you have no turns left. The only absolute exit from this game is the final event called death.

There are no performance evaluations till your performance is not over, and the best part is, you will never know the result. You will only know the moves you made. The game, however, is always eternal.

Play

Don’t waste your moves. Play to your heart’s content. Since you are the reference point, you decide what is right or wrong (for you). All moves you make are valid, so make sure to maximize the rewards and minimize the losses. What are the rewards? What are the losses?

That’s the beautiful part, you get to choose.

Since the only rules are the ones you can’t break, as they are physically impossible to do so, be free in mind, limited in your actions and maximize your impact on the game.

Want to be an artist? A social entrepreneur? A suave political leader? You decide your payouts.

A Template

It can be overwhelming to consider how best to structure your moves in this game. Trust me, I struggled to. There is no fixed guide on how you can make the best use of all your talents and skills, but I do have a general guideline that has helped me tremendously over the years.

Heh, I won’t give it for free. It’s my life’s work you know? Don’t hate me for it, I am simply maximizing my payouts (hehehe).

I’m currently working on it and will release it soon, hopefully in a format that is interactive, addictive and most importantly, fun.

> Cheers.