The Great Game of Life

Our culture loves games, many moderns prefer the brightly colored incessantly needy phone apps, but let us not forget the entire subculture of 'gamers,' from the old-school dice and books of the RPG crowd to the original Zelda and Mario games on the ancient forebears of today's astonishingly vivid and realistic gaming systems.  Why do we love them so?  The same reason we love stories, because they are stories we can lose ourselves in, to feel productive and significant, to make discoveries and find social interaction, real or fictional.  As humans, we crave significance, meaning, and relationship, we demand a world that makes sense and one in which we can make a difference, have adventures, and dream.  That is why the games so easily suck us in, providing a pleasant alternative to the grim realities of our lonely, tedious, and grief filled world.

But what does it all mean in the end?  The game is nothing, no matter your score or triumphs, if the machine breaks, the memory is corrupted, or there is no power to run it, it all comes to naught.  But so do many feel about life in general, so why not wile away the lonely hours in virtual fascination, if wile we must?  If pleasure is the only solace and meaning in life, by all means, succor yourself as best you can!  How dreadful, this worldview that all of life means nothing, is nothing, results in nothing, came from nothing and to nothing it will go.  While the words spoken on Ash Wednesday are grim, 'from dust you are and to dust you will return,' at least dust is something, was something, can be used for something again (enriching soil, growing plants...), whereas Nothing is and ever will be Nothing.

But thankfully we need not believe the folly of the more enlightened materialists and resign ourselves to a brief span of years before pointless oblivion.  Even the smallest child seems to know life means something, even those games and stories that fascinate us so seem to understand that life means something, else how could they delight us into wasting countless hours in pointless pursuit?  Life is a game, a great big, sometimes terrible game, no matter how dull, how lonely, how insignificant it might seem at the moment.  It has a point, it has rules, it is enthralling, and anyone can win!  Certainly a brighter prospect than endlessly tapping brightly colored squares on our phones and then Nothing.