Play Selected World

Do you ever wonder why you were born…

into a certain family

in a certain country

into a certain social group

into a set of circumstances

into a particular timeline

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more on TCK’s via Wiki

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I have wondered about that since the ability to wonder about those sort of things was enabled in my system.

Why have I wondered about it? What made me wonder about it? Was it due to the family, country, social group, circumstances, timeline, etc, into which I was born?

I do recall regularly being informed by others that I was lucky – but the way people said this to me didn’t make me feel lucky. Their statements about my ‘lucky’ were delivered with anger, bitterness, envy, as a warning, as a criticism – I didn’t deserve what I had because I hadn’t earned it, I had simply been given it because I was born into it. I was a roulette ball which had skittered around the wheel of fortune until it fell into a lucky number slot.

If I ever complained about anything, my mother in particular made sure to point out that I didn’t have the right to complain because other people in the world were suffering and would be more than grateful to have what I had and they wouldn’t complain about it.

If other people view you as being lucky, you are not allowed to do things like complain, cry, be mad, sad, or any of that, those are reserved for people who have earned the right to do those things.

From very early on in my living of life what I was allowed to experience and express grew smaller and smaller, while what I wasn’t allowed to think, feel, be, grew bigger and bigger.

My family was made up of two narcissist parents. I was an only child – wasn’t I lucky!

It’s a matter of perception and perspective, which in my experience shifts continuously (as the world turns, as storms hit, as the dust settles). I both agree and disagree with my lucky simultaneously depending upon where I’m standing, sitting, lying (like on the ceiling), when I look at myself, and through which filter I’m using when looking, tunnel-vision, blinkers, rose-coloured glasses, fish-eye lens, microscope, rain-wiper goggles, or X-rays specks.

I once read an opinion, written by someone (I think it was a famous author or politician from the days of yore) who seemed to have a beef against philosophers, which stated that those who had the time to ponder the meaning of life, deeply and at length, were privileged twats who didn’t know they were privileged twats whose privilege meant that they couldn’t possibly know anything about living life.

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I read that opinion around the time when I started delving into the theories of others about the meaning of life. Throughout my explorations I couldn’t shake those words (even though I seemed to have shaken off the name of the person who said them), and to this day I still feel hear them.

The fact that I have the time to write a blog post about this… and wonder about things like this… means I am lucky. The fact that I feel reticent to say that… is because there’s always this sense of lucky being a crime you’ve committed against others just by being born into a certain the family, country, social group, circumstance, timeline, etc.

You’re a baby with a lollipop.

There are certain things that one human just can’t share with other humans – one of those is our luck. Sure there are times when it does appear that someone else’s luck does rub off onto others, and we do tend to feel luckier and unluckier around certain people, but what is really happening in those moments?

Is it a shift in attitude, and that attitude shift changes our experience?

When we’re feeling good about ourselves, do we attract more good to us? Sometimes yes, but not if your feel good attracts a narcissist’s attention, or someone else who wants to wipe your smile off your face.

When we’re feeling bad about ourselves, do we attract more bad to us? I’m not sure if it works quite like that or if what happens is that our feel bad makes us reject any good which comes our way because we’re certain we don’t deserve it, we’re afraid of the responsibility which comes with it – what if we drop it and break it, what if our treasure attracts thieves, or we just can’t see it as good.

Why do those who already have plenty of stuff have more stuff drop into their laps, and even get offered free stuff… while those who are in desperate need tend to stay stuck in desperately needing mode?

Why do ‘winners’ keep winning and ‘losers’ keep losing?

Is it the luck of the draw or something else at work?

Who are the winners and who are the losers?

Are some people better at playing the game than others?

Or is it more about how we view this thing called living life and this person known as me, myself, I within this thing called living life?

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clip from Listen to Love (aka My Wife’s Having and Affair This Week). Excellent drama about choices, relationships, actions and consequences, and what happens when you share your life’s dramas on social media.

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The other day I started up a game of Minecraft – I’m lucky to have the luxury to waste time playing computer games, I realise that. I tend to only play it when I’m anxious about something and need to stop myself from spiraling into a fear vortex.

I don’t play it ‘properly’… if there is such a thing (depends on who you ask, if you bother asking). I play it in ‘creative’ and ‘peaceful’ modes, the former means I can fly and have unlimited resources, the latter means there are no monsters.

In the latest update of the vanilla version of the game, they’ve added turtles – you can breed them, and when you do they lay a cluster of eggs. In monster mode, the monsters will seek out those eggs and stomp on them until they’re crushed – it takes ages for those eggs to hatch. I don’t need that kind of stress.

What I like to do is find a Village and improve it for the Villagers – even though they don’t appreciate my improvements. I don’t need them to. Although I do feel good about freeing them when they’re trapped in a house because it spawned buried in the side of a mountain or under a sand dune, and they seem happy about it. I also enjoy giving them access to areas which they couldn’t get to due to a cliff or ravine. Once in a while they seem to appreciate my improvements, emitting hearts and spawning little Villagers. One time the Village got so crowded that… I moved on. My work there was done.

I find playing the game is useful in shifting my thinking, which is helpful in shifting my attitude. And sometimes I get a bonus insight, like I did when I was staring at the world select screen and it occurred to me that the words and option – Play Selected World – was one way of looking at birth.

We’re playing a selected world.

Did we select it?

If we did, we most likely don’t recall doing that. Although there are stories of people recalling doing it… but those stories always seem to belong to someone who isn’t us, which means we’re probably of the opinion that they’re making that shit up. But what if they’re not?

Some are playing in creative mode. Some are playing in peaceful mode. Some have enabled cheats. Some have given themselves a bonus chest at the beginning. Some are playing survival mode. Some are playing adventure mode. Some are playing hard core mode and maybe regretting the decision, but what’s been chosen has been chosen until it’s game over.

Some are playing with mods added to the vanilla version of the application. Some are purist vanilla players because the mods may be too demanding of the RAM of their machine.

Some are playing with others online. Some are loners.

Some are building castles, mansions, kingdoms for themselves. Some are setting up factories. Some are mining the eff out of the earth. Some are treasure seeking. Some are hoarders. Some are monster hunters.

And so on…

This selected world we’ve chosen to play…if we did actually choose to play it, why did we choose to play it?

Are we getting out of it what we expected?

Did I choose to grow up with parents who were narcissists? If I did… looking at it that way turns the tables on the whole experience. If I did make this choice… why? What have I gained from it? Or was it less about gain and more about loss? What was I trying to lose? Have I lost it?