Are we all just playing a game?

[dbieon12]

Now bare with me because this may sound familiar to you but recently I keep having these 'bizarre' thoughts that we, stoners, or even everyone in society are just playing this long game.

What do I mean by game? A game by definition is a scenario that sets up rules that all players may, or in this game, may not follow, with proper punishments for breaking the rules. All of this comes after the idea that everyone is pursuing a goal of some sort.

So are we just playing a game?

Well recently when I smoke (alone or with friends/new friends), I notice that I have one thought that typically follows from one high to the next, sometimes when I'm not stoned the thoughts creep back into my mind, too.

Not only do I have these thoughts, but my mind(seemingly out of my control) actively searches for things around me to convince me that this 'game' is real. That all the other people around me are just playing this lifelong game. I'm not sure if they are knowingly playing it or just 'blind' to it.

For example in a movie, if a character says anything involving the "game" it throws my brain for a loop. Or a rapper in one of his new songs mentions "money is the game" then I start to think it all over.

Now this might be normal but when I look around no one else realizes these things, which makes the conscious me believe that I am insane.

.

To be honest this feels like paranoia and anxiety around people but for some reason I can't shake it. To make things worse this 'game' is starting to replace my reality.

.

Am I insane?

:x

PS: I should add that this does hinder my in social situations, unlike alcohol, weed makes me go crazy. It makes me shy, distrusting (likely to ditch people I know or don't know), and ultimately pushes people away.

 

[spice]

Are you insane ?

(maniacal laughter)

NO.


****************************************************************


Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

....and

Trinity: I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.
Neo: What is the Matrix?
Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.


How about this one?

Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.


It is totally a game.


and.....

Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.


Morpheus: Welcome to the real world.


(maniacal laughter fades)

 

[spice]

The Matrix is a metaphor for our reality. The movie speaks on multiple levels about our world today, but you have to *want* to hear it before you can hear it.

It is far more than a cool sci-fi movie.

 

[restin]

or read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. I mean the book, not the movie. IMHO better than the Matrix.

 

[magickmumu]

how about shakesapear.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts

 

[Jeniger]

This is exactly the reason why it is illigal(substances) in most of the world today..

 

[KoNXuRo]

I usually have this kind of thoughts when I smoke Salvia, like if this life was just a dream, a game, and when I smoke I can shift between lives, I can choose another life I would have like to live, and I will wake up in that life as if the current one has been only a dream... a very vivid dream.


Anyway, my relief is to think... if this is a dream? What do I care? What do you care if it's a game or not? is it gonna change anything?

Just play it!

 

[maxfreakout]

Life is ultimately meaningless, i think the 'game' is to pretend that things have meaning

 

[spice]

Of course it is.

What 'is' meaning?

An abstraction, just like 'reality'.


@restin- One flew over the cuckoos nest was appropriate and timely for the era it was released in, but I feel that 'The Matrix' says more, and has a bigger message on more levels, and the presentation is more appealing to me, personally....I found that it entertained me while it spoke, where 'One flew over' was just basically depressing.....I know, it's a personal thing.

The message in zen is that there is no meaning in all of this whatsoever, that any meaning we attach to it is merely humans clinging to whatever comforts us. We think this clinging helps us, when in reality all it does is hold us back and keep us from enjoying what life really is, and could be.

@ the original poster. It doesn't matter that life is a game, you really have no choice but to play it. Your choice is in whose rules you'll folow, your own, someone elses, or infinite varieties of mixtures of the two. Don't feel bad because you sense there's more, we all do.

 

[Shamanita]

@ spice: Did you ever watch dark city? It's quit the same plotline as The Matrix, but DC came out a year earlier than the matrix

 

[spice]

I did, it was pretty good, too.

 

[st.bot.32]

agreed, we choose how we give our lives meaning. some choose religion, some choose to help their fellowman, some pursue knowledge

Well, that's the end of the film. Now, here's the meaning of life....

Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

 

[GOD]

"To be honest this feels like paranoia and anxiety around people but for some reason I can't shake it. To make things worse this 'game' is starting to replace my reality."

Your in controle . If you dont like how you feel dont do it .

 

[spice]

"Choice. The problem is choice."
?Neo

 

[restin]

@restin- One flew over the cuckoos nest was appropriate and timely for the era it was released in, but I feel that 'The Matrix' says more, and has a bigger message on more levels, and the presentation is more appealing to me, personally....I found that it entertained me while it spoke, where 'One flew over' was just basically depressing.....I know, it's a personal thing.

Funny, I actually could reflect a lot of the book to nowadays, the machinery, the combine, the loss of laughter, escapism, the mist etc. What bigger message do you see in the Matrix? The topic of the Dharma? You are right in the entertainment though.

 

[DaZeD]

Am I insane?

No, I also have the feeling that people are playing games constantly, it's a form of interaction I guess, we are all actors, even pain can be form of acting, you feel the pain, but to make clear how much it really hurts you'll try to convince people by making them see how much it hurts, even though, when you'd be alone you'd act differently.
It's a weird way to explain, but I tried, lol.
I do understand perfectly what you mean.

And I guess your'e right about those rappers, talking about players and such, I guess that's what they mean, we are all players of the game called life.

We act tougher then we are, we act smarter then we are, we act, we don't even have to believe ourselves, aslong as we can convince the other we might start to believe it ourselves.

 

[GOD]

Of cource life is a game and we are all playing our own version but theres a diference between that and people playing or othere people thinking that others are playing mind games with them .

 

[spice]

Yes, but where do you draw the line?

This is why you have a lot of people fall out in relation to doing psychedelics and psychoactive drugs.


The last time I did LSD, I found myself in an encounter with a real conservative republican person. He engaged me in a conversation about Bush and what a good job he was doing. I took this as a form of assault and was pretty offended, and got the hell out of there pretty quickly.

He wasn't intentionally playing 'mind games', other than the one we all continually play; the never-ending attempt to influence each others perception and thinking.....since everyone is operating with a different set of values and communication abilities, it's no wonder there are these feelings among us, the surprise is that they aren't seen more frequently.

A person is highly likely to project when under the influence of powerful psychoactive substances, seeing their phobias and fears externalized in others is a much safer way for ones psyche to grapple with the problem.....as to the literal answer to GOD's question; 'how does one know when people really are playing games, etc'? The answer is quite elementary, and one that is frequently uttered here; 'Set and Setting'

You're not supposed to do these substances with people you don't trust, that's one of the commandments.


8)

 

[toogoodforyou]

Life is ultimately meaningless, i think the 'game' is to pretend that things have meaning

True. Game is also what everyday non-aware people are playing in their daily lives. When you are sitting with a friend and both go silent, there is some awkwardness.... cause people cannot stand the emptiness that is inside all of us. So they keep creating dreams and dreams. And want more and more of everything. Somebody is obsessed with money, somebody with drugs etc.

One more game people play is ' i am better than you '

Nothing with using the things from our outside world, like money, drugs, useful electronics. The key is not to get carried away.

 

[paint]

its really good to hear all of these responses.

"the world is made by words," to quote mckenna

the shamans "controlled folly," as per castenada

you see that there is a game, now you must see what the game is. watch it shift as you realize things, and continue to play. you are no more insane than joe normal from the advertisements. you must trust yourself, but dont let that lead to a big ego, because that will likely hold you back.

the best part is that the game is not fully known by anyone, and you get to learn it as you go in the way that it occurs to you.

yes!