What I meant by "game"
A filter statement if there ever was one
The above excerpt is from a book I'm currently reading and enjoying, This Is the Strangest Life I've Ever Known: A Psychological Portrait of Jim Morrison by Ana Leorne. I was impressed by this quote because it aligns with something I am working through as I write Ong's Hat: Compleat.
When it became clear in 2000/2001 that people clearly did not understand what I was trying to do with the Ong's Hat "sacred game" (or living book as I often called it back then), I broke the fourth wall momentarily. I pointed out that there was and always had been an explanation on the CD ROM, which served as the center point for the game at the time. If you want to see it, download the ISO, use something like WinRAR or any ISO extractor, and open the Secret.pdf in the /eXtras folder.
Rather than calming the waters, my admission stirred some people up even more. It ultimately resulted in me canceling the game due to unbridled hostility on the forum over their inability to grasp a simple concept, such as not all play implies winners and losers. Sometimes, it can be about playing for the simple joy of playing. (Read your Homo Ludens).
The misunderstanding persists to this day, with people not being able to understand what an infinite game is and persisting in acting out the only thing they know:Â zero-sum games. The problem, as I see it now, is that I was speaking a language that some people do not understand. To most people, a game means something trivial or a cause to seek domination, nothing more, definitely not as something sacred.
It astounds me how incapable and unwilling so many people are to grasp a concept that seems so simple. Play for the joy of playing. More about that in Compleat in 2024.
As you can see from the quote above, Jim Morrison got it, and thankfully, I know some of you here get it. I know because you've written and expressed it, or we've spoken, and it came across. That's why you are here. So, this is a note to thank you if you're one of those people, and I wish you all the best in the coming year.
As a side note, in 2013, I spent a week living in Jim’s old room at the Alta Cienega motel and was surprised and amused to see the graffiti below among all the scrawls and scratches on the walls and furniture in the room.
2024 will be full of new things, some of which we might enjoy.
Recently I have re-introduced myself to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley via the incredible Peacock TV Series of it (which unfortunately was cancelled after Season 1, right when it was given seeds to go a direction beyond the novel) more on that in a bit.
In Brave New World, the citizens live in what they deem a perfect society, where no one is lonely, everyone is connected to everyone else, every pleasure can be had, and variations of a drug SOMA helps everyone feel good to be part of the whole.
In New London (from TV Series) people are conditioned from a young age, which is reenforced by SOMO to make them willing to be part of the bigger Multi-Tiered Zero-Sum-Game.
Alphas live a life at the top and do little,
Beta's one level down live a life building the Alpha's Dreams & Ideas and serve to pleasure the Alpha's sexual needs though orgies, always letting the Alpha's be the aggressors.
Gammas Serve as Happy Servants, loyally talking care of the those above, where pleasure is derived by servitude to their roles and the happiness of the Alpha's.
Epsilons are the bottom level, get the most conditioned to serve period. They clean, garden, repair, doing the most work as essentially slaves, to maintain the world for those above. For all their work, they get non-of the pleasure, basic rooms, only community of other Epsilons and SOMO to keep them Happy 'Slaves' of the Alphas.
Here the Zero-Sum-Game is played out and where the Novel & TV Series split. In both John the Savage, from the Savage lands (his Mother a beta left behind pregnant by his father and Alpha & Director of The Worlds. In the novel we see the Zero-Sum-Game adapt and change only to return to Normal happy world when John hangs himself, over guilt and his love Lenina reconditioned to be among the happy.
But in the TV Series, we see a more familiar events with John reminding people especially the Epsilons that they can be more. Here the Zero-Sum-Game flips and collapses on itself with a violent revolution by the Epsilons, because every one should be equal. In the End John is self excited living in the ruins of ond London trying to fool himself of being on a path he thought he should. And Lenina the beta changed by her experiences and self-awareness given control to rebuild the old perfect world, not by starting it over but by looking at their farms beyond the city and knowing that they have an new opportunity build a new society where people work hand in hand and all can be more equal.
Peacock decided dispite the positive reviews of viewers to close the first major series for their platform. Who knows maybe with Pandemic better handled and Hollywood Strikes over we'll see the new stories with this great cast and setup for Season 2 to build a real better world.
Lenina plan started at the Season 1 finally may work or may fail, but not for lack of trying. But this very concept Aldous Huxley himself years later recognized as he experienced more of the world. But also he saw the world in his original novel treating to become our reality. A lot of which is today. Looking at society here in the US, and in places like Ukraine and Israel. Really the whole world stage.
Society reenforces the Zero-Sum-Game in many aspects of our lives. With Some Meds, Cellphone apps and media using reality TV and Pop-culture to cloud events around us. This is why people have trouble seeing beyond the Zero-Sum-Game, with some doing anything to be an Alpha or Beta.
I am Neurodiverse with my ADHD, and a bit of dislexia. It's easier for people like me to see the edges of the Zero-Sum-Game, because we can recognize it and often mask ourselves to fit in, if only as outword so. It feels very lonely to be outside of that Z-S-G world and knowing there is more Worlds out there. But that loneliness makes us Neurodiverse and everyone else feels isolated, like in the end of Liminal.
We at times feel that Liminal Space around us. Our conditioning over the years makes our FOMO feel stronger and when your out of the loop for a few years, it can feel overpowering.
Why address Brave New World and loneliness of Liminal Space here.
One way we escape is to surrender the the living worlds bigger than ourselves. Visiting a place you never been before, taking part in a action or task, standing in the middle of a food market or the middle of a forest of redwoods. Surrendering ourselves to the now. Not snapping photos for Instagram, not doing things to earn likes, not trying to win or loss just being.
Besides by Neurodiversity, or maybe part of it. A am intuitive and I am a feeler. I can walk into a room and feel the tension or joy, many times I help others cause I feel they need someone to listen, to talk to, laugh with, even to vent.
I also feel energies from everything especially life. Told I give great hugs, and one of my favorites things is to surrender and embrace nature. Walking through a wooded area, watching the trees sing, as wind moves and dances with their branches and leaves dance sometimes without wind. Where wild life sometimes stops and watches me and where I love to feel the foundation of the stones and the hearts connected hugging a tree.
In Ong's Hat people saw it as a game to win or loss. Myself I enjoyed playing it, solving it's puzzles, communicating with others all for the simple experience.
How do we change the world from a Zero-Sum-Game to perhaps Lenina's "Better Brave 'Strange' New World" we first have to connect with ourselves and even if we have to live now in a type of Z-S-G world we can also live beyond it. Connect with tribes of others like us and appreciate that playing a game doesn't always have to be about Winning & Losing. Sometimes a Game is about experiencing the Game.
Maybe... Or maybe it's my attempt to fight my loneliness while seeing the world all different types of games are played.
"I's a great day. Lets play two" Ernie Banks
There will always be fans and there will always be players and no where shall they meet.
The young baseball player doesn't need an audience. They just need a sacred field with other folks who have the desire to execute and demonstate what they are learning about themselves that become their on going story that they write in their own book.
Fanatics come to watch for the competitive entertainment value of their own opinions.
The game was created for the young at heart to watch and dream of one day being a player along side those they are observing.
The game was hyjacked by fans who rot by wanting to benefit from anothers individual magick.
But the elder story will always remain because it already was.
(d)