The Game Stays the Same.

Don't take this morbidly but, isn't it all kind of one big game that doesn't seem to change?

Have you ever played a game like this before? 

Game: Greetings. level one character! There is a whole world of grand adventure awaiting you. You will fight dragons, save towns, and win the affection of your heart's desire! But first, here is a stick! Go round up some chickens. Don't get pecked more than 50 times or you'll have to start over. You will attain level two after you get 100 chickens back into the yard! 

Player: Excellent! What happens at level two? 

Game: You get a cool-looking apron that defends you from half the chicken's pecks! 

Player: That sounds neat-o, then what do I need to do to get to level three? 

Game: Gather up 200 more chickens!

Player: ...

    How often does life feel like this kind of game where the goals get moved just as we grow? For most of my life, I have felt this subtle (and not so subtle) cultural undertow to 'get to the next level', as though happiness is right there, just over the horizon. Oh! If I can just get past this next bit everything will change. Play the game to get ahead. Do so many tasks and accumulate coins or experience points, or some other metric to make certain you know that your time has been productive. Perhaps it's a way to measure the passing of time—accomplishing tasks, accumulating wealth or experiences, and chasing ambitions. The desire for a better partner, a nicer car, a bigger house. However, in the back of my mind, a whisper persists: "The game stays the same." 

    Why does that feel so true? Because as our characters get stronger, more capable, and more ... well-supplied, the monsters also tend to get stronger too. The challenges meet us with the same ferocity with which we advance into them. It feels a little easier to take on the car payment for a bigger car. I've been at this job a while, and my pay has gone up. Let me get into a car that announces that change in status. That means something, I've leveled up! LOOK AT ME! Never mind that the new car payment effectively eliminates the raise entirely. If I could only have this certificate, then I could get the job, which would then mean I could afford the bigger house. But this also comes with more to manage, to clean, with higher taxes, and the fears of losing these things and the sense of identity that come with them to malevolent acts of man or god. I get it though, I mean how boring would it be if the challenge didn't increase with our experience? If the falling blocks never started falling faster we probably would have lost interest decades ago. What a challenging thing it is to balance in this life, the desire for growth and achievement, versus satiation and contentment. And in that way, the game stays the same. 

    There is some truth in, "more money, more problems" but I hope there is a middle ground between that and "whoever dies with the most toys wins"! Hence my comparison to role-playing games. It makes sense right? We're all playing roles. Actually, it just occurred to me as I write this that Shakespeare probably said it best (no surprise there) in Macbeth's Tomorrow soliloquy. I went to quote the "poor player" part of it and in attempting to do due diligence by double-checking my recollection, I realized the whole damn thing applies. What are we in games but performers of a character prescripted to follow the rules laid out before the start of our games?

There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

    Obviously, Macbeth was having a bad day and didn't seem to be employing any kind of growth mindset. But, if we try to interrogate solely what is said detached from the wretched sorrow of his moment, this cry of futility, of looking at all the 'tomorrows' that follow from taking the same path as the day before, prompts the question in me, what else do we have to learn from except the yesterdays of our culture and community that have for the duration of our lives lighted "the way to dusty death"? Find a partner, buy a house, and have some kids. These are some examples of the pressures those 'yesterdays' bear down on us, asking us to achieve -like those who have come before us. Play the game. The 'better' game of gravitating towards a better job, a better house, or better clothes. Perhaps the game stays the same when we don't comprehend what is sufficient. 

    This might be consumer culture acting like sand in my brain but, there's an almost inescapably popular belief that if 'some is good, more is better, and better is best.' right? "The one who dies with the most toys wins." But, to me, therein lies the rub. At the end of the game, the pieces go back into the box like so many ashes to ashes and dust to dust. What a dangerous thing it is to be caught up in the game, strutting and fretting our brief time away. What will the rehash of the same moves get us besides the same results? Truly a tale told by an idiot if we expect otherwise. 

    I believe the secret, elusive as it is, will be in finding contentment with what is while simultaneously cultivating a healthy amount of ambition or goal-setting to nurture who it is we want to be. Not what we have or who we're expected to be. Perhaps, with the understanding that the pursuit, detached from the outcome, is the goal, then we can live in the experience of satiation without stagnation. Knowing that the game stays the same doesn't mean we can't enjoy the playing of it.

Roll for initiative.