As Eminem says: “…we need a little controversy” …

To digress, yes, I am an Eminem fan – mostly of his popular stuff. I hear you say: “That’s not very Zen!” but I beg to differ. There are some great human messages in his lyrics – so I might just throw a few in from time to time.

Further to what I was talking about in my greeting to you, my research has so far led me to believe in some controversial ideas on topics such as: why are we here? life and death generally, and what happens to us when we die. Some of you might find that the concepts I’ve discovered in that research as being pretty far-fetched. But as I pointed out before, that’s okay with me. I do urge you, however, if you have the slightest inkling that something greater than yourself exists out there, not God, Allah or whatever other deity exists in the most traditional of senses, then I may just have something for you to ponder. I share my views with you because it has become a part of my “knowing” that it is my job to do so. In other words, to again quote the great Marshall Bruce Mathers III: “This looks like a job for me …”

The title to this post is Game On. As I mentioned previously, my first spiritual/metaphysical “wow” moment threw itself at me from the book by Florence Scovel Schinn in “The Game of Life and How to Play It”. …. A game huh? …. How interesting, I thought, so I have made that my inspiration for this post.

From my life experiences to date, I am pretty sure that every single one of us wants to find and remain in our happy place. But how can we do that when it seems that bad stuff even happens to good people?! If there is a so-called God, in the organised religious meaning of the word (no offence intended to anyone and please substitute your own deity here), then the bad stuff should not happen. It doesn’t make sense, right? So, what if there was another school of thought on why the rotten stuff happens? I think I’ve found one theory that ticks all the boxes. Well, it makes sense to me anyway.

Some people have suggested that this life we are living is all an illusion. That the things we think exist, actually do not. Some have even come up with the idea that we are all part of a large computer game (a bit far-fetched, I know). But what if this were true?

You’re getting your “flat” eyes on aren’t you? … just stick with me a bit longer…

To illustrate my point, and I am purposefully going to oversimplify the elements, imagine there is this game called “Life” and it goes like this:

You are player one. Sometimes you can include player two, three or more.

The game is played on planet Earth.

You have a whole bunch of lives in the game and for each life, you choose the mission you want to conquer and how you will play that mission out.

Mission completed, you then progress to the next level and choose a new mission.

Fail the level and you start over (another life).

To master a level, you must be able to tune in to your true self and not let your ego trick you into failing the mission. The ego is your your rival, your opponent.

The goal is to defeat the mastermind ego and to reach enlightenment, happily ever after, total bliss etc etc – you get the picture.

Bonus: You have helpers outside of the game.

When you play Life you have free will. Ha ha! The best part is that there are no real rules whilst you are in this game. You set all the parameters to the game before you started out. The point is, if you want to progress it’s up to you. I have always said that rules are for idiots. Please don’t freak out at that comment, I’ll explain my thinking in another post. So, the game, in the most basic of terms outlined above, is my belief of how our lives work and how we get to our happy place.

To illustrate. If you are wondering, why does “stuff” keep happening to me? Like, why can’t I save money? where is the love of my life? or even, why can’t I stop eating chocolate cake? it could well be that you are facing a life mission to conquer. It’s a pretty good way to face a problem head on with: “Okay, so what do I have to conquer here? with your “mission” eyes on, rather than the attitude of “Oh… woe is me”.

As I go on, I will post more details of the types of Life missions you might be facing and other juicy stuff about the nature of our existence (science alert!), along with some useful tips to help you to master Life. In other words, I’ll keep it light for now, but as I go on you might like to delve a little deeper with me into some really good gamer stuff.

Are you still with me? If so … game on!