ready player one?
Last night in the sticky summer heat I walked down a brick alley and reflected on the decision I made last year to get a new job and how if I hadn’t, there would still be a common thread between the two sides of my choice (no longer being able to walk to work/extended commute). It’s not a revelatory observation - and a longer commute to work is hardly a spiritual life lesson, but it was a perfect example of my view on fate vs. free will. I believe that there are experiences you are destined for, but there is an active participation on how and when you get there and if you get there at all. The individual choices - i.e staying or leaving a job - can speed up, prolong, and nuance the lessons that you are destined to learn, which is what shapes our individual journeys through life.
I thought on this idea more thoroughly as I journaled before bed, and my mind likened it to a video game. Each destined lesson in life is a different level, and each level there are different obstacles to overcome, different strategies that must be employed in order to level up. The way you complete each level is unique - there’s no one singular route, and some may spend more time collecting coins while others are making a mad dash to the finish line. You can obviously fail a level by not learning the lesson presented in your life before you. When you start over again and try the same strategy is where you get stuck on a loop, never completing the spiritual task before you, and therefore being forced to relive the woes of actively making the same mistakes. And maybe some people like the level they’re on, and fear what is required to boost them up to the next level … and maybe everyone says the next level is super difficult, and they don’t think they’re ready to face it, so they purposefully avoid the strategies that would bring about success.
There will be both ease and difficulty to every unique path taken - a mushroom that makes you large will shorten the length of your journey, but will make you more susceptible to missing the enriching experience of small joys and tribulations. A mushroom that makes you tiny may allow you to indulge in what is presented before you, but may trigger an inability to visualize your end goal in the lengthening of your voyage. Neither way is right or wrong, and there may be short cuts or speed boosters presented in any situation - sometimes from an internal revelation, often at random.
Once you learn a lesson it’s not like you leave it behind forever. There will be side quests on higher levels that require you to tap into the knowledge you gained early on, to test your strength of understanding on the application of what you’ve come to know in unforeseen circumstances. And the goal is not to “win,” in the traditional sense, but rather to collect experiences through the battle of learning new things, trying different strategies, and actively participating in your personal development.
I believe each of our Great Fates is out there waiting for us, and we each have the ability to get there, but it can only unravel by choice. Life doesn’t just happen to us - we’re all active participants in the creation of our own stories. There’s no winning or losing, but I believe it’s worth trying our best anyway. Why not? Instead of thinking, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Why not imagine the ideal? Why not live intentionally as if things could work out in our favor? Maybe it will.
