The Player In The Game
Nothing New Under The Sun, Let It Rain, The Losing Move
The only losing move is not to play the game you want to play.Prelude
Lyrics
They say that there's nothing new that's under the sun
(All these things that make me lose my focus)
(And all these parts of me I have not noticed)Nothing new under the sun:
The lyrics of ‘Nothing New Under The Sun’ reminded me of the unconscious, anti-curious experience of being lost in the everyday monotony of the rat race.
When our heads are down, ploughing through life, it feels as if nothing new happens under the sun. Curiosity is replaced by complacency, conformity, and untested certainty.
It’s the closed way of being that limits the breadth and depth of experience, makes you lose focus of what matters, and blinds you from knowing all the parts of who you are.
Life doesn’t have to be that way.
Under the sun, the wind and water will continue to operate as they always have, but not everything must remain the same. You don’t have to follow the cyclic ways of the world if it’s not the game you want to play.
Interlude
LVN Stories
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If you are interested in contributing to the question of what matters, I’d love to hear from you.
Send a note to Niall at: lvnclubstories@gmail.com.
Let it rain:
If it’s raining cats and dogs when you open your curtains in the morning, keep them open.
You won’t always get to decide the conditions of the game, but you can choose how you experience them. This is one, I’m always working on as it’s easier said than done, but worth the effort.
Funnily enough, I’m being forced to put this into practice as I prepare to run my first marathon on Sunday. I was hoping to feel rested but instead sleep has been shit and a few irritating injuries have reared their head. Not the conditions I wanted but they are the ones I’ve got.
There are of course much more testing conditions I could be experiencing right now and my love goes out to those people who are persisting through them.
The losing move:
You can play what looks like an attractive game and still be empty inside. By materialistic definitions, it can seem like you are winning. While spiritually, feeling like a fraud, and absent of meaning — which is why playing the game your way will always be more fulfilling than the default program.
The only losing move is not to play the game you want to play.
Postlude
Live Free,
Niall
This piece reminded me of my poem "The Abstracts of Life", Check it out might be of you're interest!
The idea of "nothing new" can be countered by the fact that every individual occupied a unique place in the world, even in all creation. No one else can see the world as you do in this moment because no one else can occupy that same place. And when you bring the sum total of all the spaces you've uniquely occupied, all the uniqueness of experience, then every moment is an opportunity for discovery and newness.