Wild Ride

What would happen if you gave a razor-blade to a baby? Potentially bad things. What happens when you give the power of creation to a fragment of God? You give the potential for chaos. What happens when you give the power of wish-fulfillment to a young wizard? You get the potential for some unpleasant manifestations.

What’s my point? If we are truly entities that design the world we see (either as spiritual beings or sprites in a simulation), then there’s a decent chance that we’re going to whip-up some nasty stuff when we first enter the world. For instance, when a class full of kids is left alone without the teacher, oftentimes tumult ensues.

Of course not every kid or noob is going to go nuts, but some will lose control and get crazy. And once we get scary stuff in our minds, we keep thinking about it, creating even more as we go. All of a sudden the world seems like a nightmare-realm full of monsters. Yet these were monsters of our own immature-fragment-of-god creation.

For me at least, the spiraling negativity didn’t end until I scared myself into such a state-of-fear that I finally lacked even the drive to scare myself anymore. I was done, the wild ride was over. And although I was able to leave the downward spiral, old habits die hard and I still have a tendency to scare myself.

If ever I remember the horrible happenings in my past, I wonder: if this is such a great world, why did so many bad things happen? The comforting answer I came up with was that my inexperience as a creative-being manifested them all. At least from that perspective, I had creative control. But I was a noob that went nuts and flung sh*t everywhere.

Now I’m stuck cleaning up the mess I made. Oops, sorry me. Whenever I find traces of the smeared darkened hues, I have to scrub them out or paint over ’em with brighter colors. I covered so much of life with negativity — there’s a lot to undo. But no big deal really, painting is a perfectly fine past-time. And the more I do, the more resplendent everything gets.

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Episodic Dreams

An excerpt from the fictional tales of Consumed by Reality.

By the glow of the screen I could see my face reflected on its surface. I sat with the show paused. Was it a message? Am I as schizo as the character I’m watching? To scroll through the thoughts I’ve been having lately, it certainly seems like I’ve given up on reality — the reality I knew for so many decades, now gone.

In favor of what? A belief that boils down to magic? The casting of verbally-invoked spells and manifesting wishes? Really? That’s insane. But why does everything I keep watching and reading keep telling me the same thing? Am I just surrounding myself with nut-jobs? Is the Bible, a book revered by billions throughout history and the world something to be readily dismissed?

If I simply follow my cultural heritage as a Christian, then I’m supposed to believe in supernatural powers — case closed. But it’s more than that, even the best-selling books on “business success” are telling me the same things. And interviews with world-famous people speaking on their own success further corroborate the same extraordinary forces at work. I feel like Alice in Wonderland.

Could it be that the things I believed about reality for all those years are completely delusional? Was I nuts? Am I only starting to see the reality that everyone else is living in? Holy shit! I’ve been a crazy-person lost in my delusion for decades!? Or is it that I’m NOW going crazy, seeing a fantasy world where none exists?

Was my family just playing along? Humoring the weirdo that believed in a physical reality ruled by random chance? Did they even think I was serious? “Of course he’s joking! Haha” — or at least they hoped I was. Or perhaps from their perspective, they just couldn’t understand the ravings of a madman.

Although in my defense, the people around Jesus didn’t “get it” either — not the people that had him crucified nor even his direct disciples. Am I to believe that everyone gets it nowadays? And I’m just the idiot left in the dark? I find that hard to believe, yet everything I’m seeing lately implies it’s common knowledge.

Where do I even start looking for a foundation? So let me get this straight, the planet I’m living on wasn’t created billions of years ago by a seemingly random explosion in the center of the universe, nor did life come-to-be by chance millions of years ago and evolve over time into many varying species, one of which being humanity? And the course of each human’s life isn’t determined by a cocktail of random-chance, DNA, survival-skill, societal influence, and luck? Well shit.

And instead of all that, I’m actually a welcomed and cared-for guest in some sort of fabricated paradise in which my every desire is meant to come true — all I have to do is wish it into existence? What the FUCK!? Was my head THAT buried in the sand? It’s like Little Orphan Annie finding out she’s been adopted by Daddy Warbucks — or Charlie walking into the Chocolate Factory — a dark and gloomy world dawning into one of delight and wonder.

Even THOSE movies were trying to tell me something. To get me to snap out of it — to wake up. You mean this awesomely elaborate world isn’t a complete shithole hellbent on tormenting its inhabitants?? Oh, my bad. And the part about it being a fun-factory of dream-fulfillment is actually true? It’s not hyperbole? Really? Huh, well don’t I feel like a dope.

Casual Gamer Club

Welcome to the first meeting of the CGC, the Casual Gamer Club. This is a club for those of us taking a casual approach to playing the game of existence-on-Earth. First of all, I’d like to welcome any new members. And if any outsiders are wondering if you too might be a casual gamer, I’ll take this time to list some of our attributes.

1. Lack of involvement.
Volunteers? Nope, not us.
Groups or affiliations? None.
Careers? Ha, no.
Families? Kinda, but only the bare-minimum.
Friends? Maybe one.

2. Lack of role-playing.
We wince at the idea of “pretending” or “playing along”. We typically avoid most forms of highly-structured interaction. We have no clue about our lines or which dialog fits which situation. Because of our lack of in-depth study, we can’t improvise.

3. Lack of feelings.
We don’t feel much, unless watching a highly choreographed emotion-inducing movie perhaps. We lack a sense of spiritual significance — in other words, we get no sense of awe or wonder from being in the world. We really only perceive the shallow stuff — after all, casual gaming is all about a less-in-depth approach.

4. Lack of long-term plans.
We pretty much just go with the flow — letting life happen. And because life honors the casual gaming approach, we’re allowed to skate through for the most part. Of course, as you can see by all that we lack, we don’t get a lot of the benefits that in-depth players get.

And to note: I can understand how this type of existence is completely foreign to any hard-core Earthers out there. But don’t judge bro, you have your way of playing, this just happens to be our way of playing. You guys are truly dedicated to your craft and we really appreciate the effort you put into your gameplay. Obviously we’re a boring bunch that relies on your showmanship for our entertainment — but you get an audience that’s not busy living their own lives — so it’s win win really.

I mean yeah, in one sense we’re lazy, I get that. But in an epic fantasy role-playing game, not everyone wants to be balls-to-the-wall gung-ho go-get-um — ya know? Some of us don’t care enough to dedicate years to learning the esoteric minutia that comes with acting-out an in-depth role. Some of us just want the front-row seats that existence provides — it doesn’t mean we want to actively participate.

So that’s us in a nutshell, the members of the Casual Gamer Club. I shall close today’s meeting with a haiku-style poem:

Going to the pool.
Much fun in the shallow end.
Splash, but not too much.

Micro Bunnies

Within us all lives a roving herd of tiny, nearly imperceptible, rabbits — micro bunnies. It’s just one of those strange facts-of-nature I guess. We’re all born with them. They’re white and fluffy and they love to eat garbage. Yes that’s right, garbage. They love eating the stuff that doesn’t belong in our bodies. They’re tidiers to their core.

Typically they’ll sniff something odd and just start nibbling. And when one starts nibblin’, they all gather ’round — feastin’ away. You can oftentimes tell they’re there by the heat produced when they’re all cozied up nibblin’ together. They’re quick too, trash doesn’t last long.

If you think about it, everything gets a little dirty over time or develops some wear and tear — and the same is true for our bodies. So thank goodness we have micro bunnies to keep things clean on the inside. Why I heard once, that the tiny little poops of the micro bunny are actually restorative — wherever their little micro-loaf lands, it fills in any gaps that need fillin’.

And sometimes, when I’m feelin’ somethin’ strange, why I just imagine those little micro bunnies goin’ ta work. I picture ’em nibblin’ away at whatever doesn’t seem right. Go bunnies! Go! And I see ’em squattin’ over any gaps they find, droppin’ in their cute little micro bunny bricks.

Casual Gamer

I’m more of a casual gamer when it comes to video-games. I kinda saunter in, mash a few buttons, do my thing, then go about my day. I don’t like to over-strategize, learn about in-depth secrets, or practice to the point of mastery — who cares. Get in, have some fun, get out.

And as a casual gamer, it sucks when you find yourself within a game that contains a lot of depth — all you wanna do is blow sh*t up but this game wants you to learn all its esoteric secrets. You want to quickly figure out which button does what and start blastin’. Woohoo!! But in a game that requires more information-gathering and thought, you’re like “Huh!? WTF is going on here!!? I don’t get it!”

Well welcome to life my friend. I think I signed-up for Earth after watching all the crazy trailer-footage of explosions and excitement, but the actual gameplay turned out to be nothing like I expected. It’s slow and meandering and its intensity is displayed on a whole different level. And the controls — are just nuts — I still don’t get what I’m supposed to do.

I’m several decades into my current game and I’m still goin’ casual btw. F*ck that in-depth stuff, I ain’t into role-playing bullsh*t. Of course, as a casual gamer in an epic fantasy role-playing game, I spend most of my time NOT interacting with other players. “Greetings fellow traveller, I present to you 8 golden-ingots of the under-realm that I laboriously farmed by way of participation in the leather-guild.” NOPE.

I realize that I’m the one missing out. I get it. Pick a role and play it out. But it just seems so phony and goofy. When I see uniforms for example, I see kids playing dress-up for the day and I’m the adult sitting over to the side, babysitting — and if I have to interact with the scene in front of me, I do so mockingly. I can’t seem to drop my guard and genuinely play along.

But such is life as a casual gamer. Ironically, I think watching gameplay-footage on YouTube is stupid, but that’s essentially what I spend my time doing i.e. watching gameplay footage of Earth-gamers. But actual gameplay footage of an Earth-gamer playing a video-game is just too meta for me I guess.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I manage to enjoy myself here. I sit and commentate on life and all its silliness. I engage in the easy stuff: like eating, watching videos on the Internet, hangin’ out with my friend, writin’ this blog. It’s cool. My biggest worry was that one day life would be like: “Okay, you’ve had plenty of time to prepare, now you’re on your own! Good luck!” Thankfully, that never happened. Life apparently honors the role of casual gamer. Thanks life — I truly appreciate that.

Earthly Explanation

Okay so you’re alive, what have you gotten yourself into? First of all, welcome to Earth. Unfortunately, you’ll be unable to remember much of this explanation as your capacity to retain input has been greatly reduced for the duration of your visit. This is on purpose of course, or else the sensation of immersion would not feel as complete. Sorry for the late explanation, but that’s also by design (same reasoning). And as you’ve probably noticed, you regularly experience sleep, this also helps you forget and reset for the oncoming day. You have to be handicapped in certain ways so you’ll feel like you’re a part of this world.

If you haven’t caught on already, this world is a fabricated experience — but that’s a good thing. We’ve received many complaints about the world feeling “too real” and we tend to take those as compliments. Basically, none of what you’re experiencing actually exists, it’s more of a computer-simulation of sorts. So all that gloomy/gory stuff simply isn’t there, which is why we don’t bother adjusting the realness-factor. At the end of the day it’s just flickering-pixels. Yes, some participants become frightened beyond their comfort-levels, but for us, it’s immersion-first. We take pride in the creation of a ride so convincing that you actually feel like a genuine embodied being. Trust us, if we did it any other way, the world wouldn’t be believable and you’d be bored.

After all, that’s the entire point of Earth: the simulation of a limited life for your enjoyment. Things are supposed to die here, that’s something new you get to experience. And not only do you experience limitations on your lifespan, but on your knowledge and creative capacity as well. That’s right, you get to be an incapable dummy. Ha! Enjoy it while it lasts! Haha! But seriously, the reason I’ve contacted you today is to check-in and make sure things are to your liking. Again, we do get our share of complaints, but we try to rectify them when we can. Let me start by going over some general concepts and controls in case you haven’t figured them out already.

This is sort of a game/movie hybrid. The path your character is following is found swirling around in your thoughts. It’s a combination of all those meaningful feelings, impulses, and inspirational ideas that are spurring you to do some things while avoiding others. Again, because of the necessity for immersion, the roadmap isn’t obvious — you have to kinda decipher it on the fly. No big deal though, it’s self-correcting for the most part — you’ll get there.

And as far as the controls and the gaming aspect, it’s not really what you’re used to in terms of conventional video-games. It’d be kinda silly if you simply had to move your character along an XYZ-axis with a joystick and press a jump-button now and again. Essentially with any video-game, the actual mechanics boil down to a player aligning with the character by way of the controls. So what you actually control doesn’t matter as much as the ability to sync with the gameplay over time with repeated practice.

In other words, the player learns and adapts to the timing of the game. In a traditional video-game, when an obstacle arrives, the player moves into the appropriate position and presses the jump button. Through practice over time, the player aligns himself with the game until he’s able to navigate with relative ease. In short, the player learns to identify obstacles and react appropriately. And that brings us back to Earth, where you the player, must identify obstacles and react appropriately.

But in Earth, the obstacles aren’t so obvious. Like I mentioned, this game goes beyond the simple XYZ-axis stuff. Spoiler Alert: for the most part, your character is on auto-pilot. And like I also mentioned, the path you’re on is basically pre-programmed. So what do you, the player actually get to do? Haha. Well first, you get to experience the exciting spectacle that-is-life from a front-row seat, that’s pretty cool in and of itself of course. As for game mechanics, it kinda goes like this:

Buttons and switches are passe at this point — you can’t control anything directly or it would kill the sensation of immersion, plus you’re handicapped all the way down to complete-noob status — you wouldn’t know what you’re doing anyway. So everything you-the-player can do is mental — it’s all in the mind. It’s not the things your character does per se, it’s the way in which you react to what he does — that’s what you control. But make no mistake, you do have the power to impede your character’s progress on his path — you can definitely sabotage yourself if that suits your fancy.

To delve a little deeper into why you can’t simply steer your own character, just think of all the external circumstances that would need to coordinate amongst billions of beginner-level players attempting to manually control their characters — that’s insane to even contemplate — so of course things are primarily coordinated on everyone’s behalf. Just imagine all those cars on the roads — of course they’re on a system-controlled auto-pilot.

But anyways, I was discussing obstacles. Obstacles literally get in your way, and you’ll typically pump the brakes when they do. But if you hit those brakes, then you pause on your path. And although it seems logical to stop, that’s actually the wrong approach. The correct procedure is NOT to pump your brakes, you’re supposed to TRUST the path you’re on and follow it to fruition. Then why do you even have the option to brake? Well it comes back to immersion again (of course).

Picture this, you’re playing an old-fashioned video-game in which your car is driving straight down an endless road. You can wiggle the steering-wheel back-and-forth and press a brake-pedal. If not for that wiggle-room and the ability to brake, you wouldn’t feel as though you’re playing a game, it’d be a read-only video instead. In other words, having a little wiggle-room and the ability to brake turns your life into a game that provides the sensation of being in control — which ultimately, you do have control of — unfortunately, that control is in the form of a kill-switch.

So let’s examine a braking example. Imagine that you have an innate desire to go down a particular path. Someone comes along and says “Hey, don’t go that way!” and then you start thinking, “Oh? Okay I won’t! Whew! That was a close one.” In this scenario, you met an obstacle and you pumped the brakes. Oops — you were supposed to continue along your merry way despite the obstacle. That’s the game mechanics you’re trying to sync with: something will happen and your reaction should be to keep on truckin’.

Here’s a less obvious example. Imagine someone says, “Hey let’s go do this activity that you don’t wanna do!” and then you start thinking, “Huh, this feels wrong to me, but my buddy really wants me to do it, maybe I should. You know what, I’ll do it! I’ll force myself if I have to!” In this scenario, you pumped the brakes on your path again. By going against your innate feelings (your roadmap), you halted your progression. Again, you were supposed to jump the hurdle and proceed on your path.

Don’t worry though, you’ll get it. What game worth playing doesn’t take repeated practice to get right? And now that you know a bit more about what’s going on here, perhaps things will go smoother for ya. Always keep in mind that this game was designed with your amusement in mind, not to scare or punish or any nonsense like that. Hey and when you’re done, don’t forget to rate and leave a review. We’re really proud of what we’ve put together here and your kind words go a long way.

Objective Perspective

I should try analyzing the world from a more objective perspective. It’s certainly better than my current strategy of interpreting my surroundings based on my fear-laced childhood beliefs. I keep seeing myself as a scared little bunny struggling for survival amidst a chance-based physical reality upon a giant rock hurtling around an even bigger fireball within a vast and endless nothingness.

So here’s a more objective analysis:

1. I’ve been alive for several decades. This fact is significant because of my utter incompetence and inability to do anything, as well as my complete ignorance of physical-survival and social-norms. How am I still here and doing relatively well? Obviously something external is maintaining my existence — because it sure as hell ain’t me doin it.

2. People successfully engage in seemingly dangerous activities all the time. This must mean that I’m incorrectly interpreting these activities as dangerous. Life is much safer than I assumed.

3. There are people that actually live-out their lives along complete story arcs. This demonstrates that lives are of a fictional nature. If there are obvious narratives, then random-chance isn’t a thing. This also implies that death is not a random occurrence.

4. Inspirations and ideas enter everyone’s minds. Where do these seemingly novel thoughts originate? This implies that physical reality isn’t all there is. There’s something influencing and guiding our thoughts — which means we’re connected to something greater than our individual human self.

5. People successfully achieve goals. This implies that wishes actually come true. People have desires that eventually manifest within their physical reality. Even the most fantastical ideas have come true: flying-ships, rocket-ships, space-travel, video-phones, touch-based computer-tablets, voice-based computing, etc. This further implies that it’s improper to apply limitations on what can be achieved within this world.

6. I’ve been proven wrong many times — my theories about life are therefore unreliable. Because of my sheer ignorance when it comes to the concept of existence, I’ve no basis by which to be worried about anything — I simply don’t understand enough. How could I even know whether one outcome is better than another. By this logic, I should really approach life from an open-minded perspective and simply accept it is-as.

Of course it makes me feel like a big dummy to analyze the world from a more objective perspective and see that it’s so far off from my belief system. It’s even weirder when such analysis doesn’t automatically lead to a corrected set of beliefs. If I’m obviously wrong, why don’t I simply accept it and move-on instead of continuing along with my lame beliefs?

It’s possible that the world is purposefully being deceptive and really wants me to believe in a chance-based physical reality. In a video-game or movie for instance, we’re supposed to get lost within the storylines and see ourselves as characters within the world we’re watching. But the counter-argument to that, is there’s tons of people that don’t believe in a chance-based physical reality. There’s a lot of spiritual folks that can’t relate to my perspective.

One possible explanation is that the world really is being deceptive in the sense that it’s trying to portray an actual world in which we’re embodied inhabitants. In order to feel the full sensation of immersion, we’re tricked into believing that we’re born here as physical creatures of-the-Earth. And that’s fine, why not — it’s just movies/video-games taken to the next level — cool.

But where it goes wrong for some of us, is we take it waaaaay too seriously. “OH SH*T!!!! I could die at any second!!! AHHH!!!” And we develop warped beliefs about what’s happening here (beliefs that are unsubstantiated by the way — we get an off-idea and just run with it). Whereas some folks “get it” — to them it’s simply a game, which it is.

And the punchline to our misfortunate misunderstanding is this: we finally collapse from the intensity of the stress we’ve been inflicting on ourselves throughout the decades, and from that standpoint we finally kinda “get it”. We then become “spiritual” and take THAT too seriously as well. Gah. That’s why enlightenment is like walking a razor’s edge. You fall off the path if you go too far in either direction.