The impossible game

There are so many rules to this world but they generally fall into two categories as I see them, natural and artificial. The natural rules are unbreakable by universal law and we do not know them all. The artificial rules however are the ones we have created and impose upon ourselves. These are always inside that of natural laws, often heavily within the boundaries.

When it comes to the natural rules of the universe there are two positions, possible and impossible, meaning, if it can be done, it can, if it can't, there is no way to ever do it. Now, if it can be done, it doesn't mean it will be done, it is just that there is the possibility open for it.

Nature looks to maximise possibility and then trim what doesn't work through natural selection whereas artificial laws look to restrict what can be done and protect some positions over others. Essentially, natural laws live in a free market of risk and opportunity, artificial laws are a box designed to manipulate freedom. Again, this is just as I see it and you may have a different way of visualisation of the two systems.

Now, we all like to play games and a large part of any game is the rules that bind the behaviours and when people choose to play a game together, it is implicitly understood that all will follow the same set of rules. This is why cheating is so heavily frowned upon by most as it breaks the agreed upon rules.

The problem is though, for most parts of life, the rules aren't agreed upon and everyone has different interpretations as to how to play the game. When one interprets it one way and another uses their own interpretation, it is easy to see how each may call the other a cheat, or naive.

The next issue is the assumption that our interpretation of the rule book is the correct one which is of course obviously the case as that is what we act upon and, what makes us feel ashamed when we do the wrong things. This assumption also means that we know when others are acting badly as it is different to us.

This assumption also creates another problem as we also assume that we have read and understood the whole book and when things affect us, we may ascribe it to what we know and feel victimised, instead of what it actually was, which was outside of our sphere of knowledge.

But, all this aside (and many details left out) this is not the impossible game I speak of. There is one impossibility that is potentially bound by a hidden natural law. We can compete and beat people at all of the artificial games we can devise, we can lie, cheat and steal and gain advantage over all others but, there is one that we can never best, and that is ourselves.

No matter how hard we play, no matter how much we attempt to change, no matter how much we redesign and improve along the way, We can never be better than who we are in the moment.

This doesn't mean we can't be better in the next and it doesn't mean we cannot learn from our past but, we do what we do now and that directs our next step forward, back or off to the side. The game of being better than who we are today is always unwinnable but it is one we cannot help but play. By design, there is no failure and success is momentary and pointless as all it is, is an indicator to move on and do better again.

This is our personal evolution and when we overcome ourselves, it is always in a limited capacity meaning, it is just a changing of one rule in the rule book, the creation of a new rule, or destruction of an old.

It is lucky that this game is unwinnable for if it was and we won, what then? No, there is always another path to take, a new facet to investigate, more options laid out in front. This is the expansion from restriction to unrestricted except by the bounds of natural law.

but, as I said, just because a possibility is there, it does not mean that it must be taken. This is the negotiation with the self and it is just as continual as the game of the self. We are all acting upon our personal rule book of truth and morality and how we negotiate it, how we use it to interact with our environment, our world and our community is a game just as complex as the universe itself.

Which also means it is just as simple. It is we who introduce complexities at the human level, not nature for nature is unbounded except by the impossible. It is we who create competing desires for nature can only act on the moment itself, there is no future, and the past provided what it did. It is we who choose to create a rule book that benefits us at the expense of others and we who feel harmed when their rule trumps our own.

There is a lot of conflict in the artificial rules we have created, the fun part is working out a better way. That starts, continues and ends with us and the end is only possible when nature says it is impossible to go on.

Taraz
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