Some time shortly after college I made a switch from existing for existence’s sake to existing in order to win. Winning for me meant playing their game by my rules, but I didn’t realize that winning under their rules isn’t a goal, it’s a ongoing process, and that’s “how they get ya”.
I had become disillusioned with the world. I had seen things for what they really were and I realized that we were living a lie, one that was killing us slowly each day. Donny just picked up and left, shrugged off the burdensome, post-revolution world and never looked back. Even still it wasn’t leaving for real. He’s on the outside, but he can’t help but weave in and out of the this pleasant story we’ve all concocted. I knew the life of the outsider on the outside wasn’t for me. If anything I needed to be the outsider on the inside, my success and determination in the face of their immense fiction would be a constant reminder of the falsity of it all. And yet I got caught up in it, losing the innocence I had earned through blissful ignorance of the Truth and instead forced to face the harsh truth that no one cares if you win or lose, so long as you keep up the act.
And that’s where I find myself, nearly a decade later. I’ve won their game with my rules, but winning is a constant struggle, not a state of being. I’ve chosen to play their game and here I’ve lost the bliss I thought to cultivate in it. You win to keep winning and know one cares how you did it.
“I did it my way!” I scream and no one bats an eyelash, their smug avoidance of recognition a faint snicker of now keep doing it and shut up.
I thought myself enlightened. I was foolish. We’re stuck in this story whether we like it or not, the real question is how you deal with it. Do you remain blissfully unaware? Do you seek escape and skirt the edges of the fiction, while reaching constantly for the real? Do you play by your own rules and find yourself shocked when no one cares? Or is there some way to go through the motions and let the rest just slide.
Some time shortly after college I made a switch from existing for existence’s sake and to existing in order to win. Now that I’ve won I see that finding bliss in mere existence is the Truth of the matter. Winning was no struggle at all, only a trap. The real struggle yet remains, not to come to terms with the fiction, but to remove it in all but sheer action and in everything else transcend. And how does one do this? Perhaps the answer to that is the answer itself. Perhaps the process is the result. Where to begin?
