Tag purpose

The dangers of comfort

Geir Isene 92 Comments

I believe we have an inherent drive, a purpose. Any purpose.

A purpose needs a game. A game needs a purpose.

Without barriers, there is no drive and without a drive there is no life.

Life is fueled by accomplishment. The overcoming of barriers toward a purpose we create yields a sense of mastery, of accomplishment.

When we fulfill purposes, we create new purposes to achieve. As we realize purposes, our life becomes more accomplished, more perfected. And comfort sets in.

Johnny wants to become a physician, have a luxurious home, a great marriage and two wonderful kids. He goes through years of education, dates girls, becomes a doctor and marries Miss Right. They get two lovely kids. He’s a wonderful father and they adore him. They live in a fantastic house and life is full of comfort. Now what?

With more perfection and comfort, less purposes and excitement remains. There is freedom with less barriers and adventure, less drive and direction. There is less to live for. At that point a person can slumber in apathy or revolt by creating less positive adventures – like self-inflicted pains, drugs or criminality. Johnny starts drinking and beats Miss Right left and right. He gambles and loses the house.

What happens with individuals have parallels in societies and the World at large.

We see the dangers of comfort in our decadent Western world much like the Romans experienced in their conquered world. As our world grows less dangerous and comfort and freedom sets in, we will create new dangers to topple, or we can slide into apathy to have dangers mounting while we slumber. With less wars, population growth tapering off and with criminality rates going down, we may have to rely on global warming or artificial intelligence to keep us busy. Because perfecting society with security to iron out any possibility of terrorism will only create more comfort and less life.

Maybe the need for adventure is why we don’t see any advance alien civilizations. Maybe they bored themselves into apathy or did some crazy shit as a counter-reaction to the increasing comfort and lull.

If you can look past the terrible special effects and the cute retro scenery, this episode of Space 1999 captures the dangers of comfort in a neat way:

What should we do to have a decent game to come back to?

The games of life

Geir Isene 28 Comments

What defines a game?

Purpose.

Purpose explains a game. It delimits a game. It makes the game.

A game is anything defined by at least one purpose – a computer game, a game of chess, watching a movie, a project or job, a relationship, family – even life itself. Different participants in a game have different purposes. While the sum of the purposes defines a common game, each person ha his own version of that game – defined by his purpose(s).

So when we talk about the importance of being able “to let go“, what are we letting go of? When a person is stuck in loss of girlfriend or enraged by loosing his job, he needs to be able to say “fuck it” and let it go. But what is “it”? The now ex-girlfriend? The job he had? No. The ex-girlfriend represented a game. The job was another game. Both had a defining purpose, and that is what he needs to let go of.

To enjoy the games we play, it is important to manufacture purposes, to give life to the games in order to reap the benefits – experiences and emotions. It is equally important to be able to stop creating a purpose – to let it go. Freedom is achieved by the ability to create and not create purposes, to go into and out of games freely.

Pride, ego and “having to be right” makes it harder to letting go and to create new purposes.

In order to get the full benefits of a game, one has to give value to that purpose. The more valuable a purpose is, the more serious the stakes are, the more benefits can be harvested. Self suggestion becomes an integral part. But one can get to the point where a game gets too real and becomes overwhelming. That’s when you pull out the tool called “fuck it”. Even when you die. But until that time you might as well get maximum enjoyment out of the games of life.

Picture taken from my balcony with Sony Xperia Z3

Picture taken from my balcony with Sony Xperia Z3

What’s the point, if any?

Geir Isene 243 Comments

We haven’t had an open discussion yet on this blog as to what the purpose is for life, the universe and everything.

There are lots of answers ranging from “the purpose is unknown” and various specific general or personal purposes to “no purpose”.

I’d like to invite an open discussion about the reason(s) for it all.

So; What’s the point, if any?