015: The present is all that we have
509 words.
I’m writing this reeling from the news of a friend’s misfortune; her having received news of a fearsome health condition.
She’s someone of the same age and similar journey (barring her having married with 2 kids). People getting health crises was something I knew intellectually, but never emotionally registered until now.
The terrible development I predict is: if it goes pear-shaped and she passes on from this, most of her family and friends would quickly move on. There is no resenting this as well; simply an outcome that the present is all that we have.
The present is all that we have.
What are we doing, playing stupid games, pursuing shiny objects or statuses that don’t register moments after we have attained them? Knowing the satisfaction of acquiring them is transient, we chase relentlessly in hopes that more will be different.
A player of the infinite game may have attained this enlightenment, transitioning to their New Game+. But they are still a minimum a witness of the mini-games played but the rest of the community. There doesn’t seem to be a way to convince others to enter the New Game+ quickly, other than being a role model and encouraging others to pursue the ‘right’ things.
What is a New Game+, a non-gamer may ask? Typically it is when a storyline of a game has been completed, and the player replays the game with some of the following changes:
- Access to better equipment and skills, if not all the original skills
- Secret areas or challenges
- Higher levels of difficulty
The core reason of playing a New Game+ is the gamer must have enjoyed the original storyline.
I have previously thought about life in school as a tutorial level. This definition shifted to everything before parenthood being a tutorial. I write this in full respect of others’ choice to not have children. There is just a huge difficulty spike between doing things with children vs without.
Being someone without children, I freely admit my ignorance of the challenges faced. The following are some that I observed:
- Not having enough sleep
- Having your schedule shaped around the care of the children
- Massive increase in expenses
The above are enough to leave me quaking, content to stay in my parents’ home. And yet many rational individuals go through with it anyway.
Yet learning how they cope has been enlightening in its own right. If there’s something children know much more than adults, it is how the present matters much more than anything else. The joy of discovery, the disappointment of scarcity, the satisfaction of indulgence. All of these moments come unhidden on a child’s face, before they learn to play the deceptive social games of adulthood.
The present is all that we have.
In the face of probable loss, I would like to spend more time reflecting on that. How to be more of a child, loving and appreciating more purely.
Nothing reminds us of the limited time we have better than death.