The Game(?) of Life

A long, long, long time ago I took this Political Science class at a community college during what was to be my senior year in high school.  The instructor was some odd variation on a "right-winger", somewhat Libertarian, and a Reagan worshipper who would drop such wisdom as, "You can't enjoy a hotdog in Red Square."  I did mention long, long..yeah, covered that.

Anyway, the dude was kind of an idiot but neither I nor any of the other students ever really challenged him when he said stupid things. However, one of those stupid things has stuck with me throughout the eons and it always bugs me when I think about it.  He posited a hypothetical situation in which we were given a choice before entering this world between everyone having the same amount of... well, I guess wealth or stuff or something, or some having more than others, with the tantalizing bait that we could be one of those who have more.  He was pretty sure that most would choose what I would call that "game" version, rolling the dice and hoping to come out on top.

What bothers me most about this is that, yeah, if you kept your little scenario as simple as you state it, folks might go the way that you've said, but that's not at all fair to the decider.  Let's look at the consequences of the decision a little before we choose.  For one, if you chose the "game" you have guaranteed that there will be losers, and not just you if it blows that way but who knows how many other people.  You are condemning people to lose.  Play a game, there have to be losers. This isn't one of those everyone-wins-by-playing things (as far as we know), this is a real game here.  And it'd be nice to know just how much things suck for losers before you made your choice.  People with little to nothing suffer, and suffering in this game sucks with a capital S.  Knowing that you could, and certainly others will, end up in the suffering camp just might affect how many folks choose to play the game.

Now, I'm not saying that life is about wealth and the accumulation of stuff.  Many argue that it's simply not the case, which would be fine if we knew that while playing the game.  I hate playing games where I don't know the ins and outs, the rules and how to win.  Without that knowledge you are hobbled and more likely to lose.  Fuck that, I'm not playing, not fun.  If we knew for sure that suffering in this life would mean nothing once we leave, then perhaps we could just suck it up and look forward to the next round.  If only.

There are many who live this life in "game" mode who are fine with having a zillion losers and a handful of winners.  They have distanced themselves from the suffering, sometimes even their own, because of this.  Fine.  Dog eat dog, apparently.  But would it really be so bad if, knowing we've set all of this up in a way that there will be losers, we made losing not so horrible? Does losing really have to engender as much suffering as it currently does?  I say no, but who the hell am I, shut up.

I've certainly entertained the idea that before we start this life we've entered a big magic arcade and dropped our quarter in this machine to play.  What sucks is that once we do, we lose the perspective we had before doing so.  Once playing the game there is nothing else except hypotheticals as far as if there is anything but the game.  I can easily see us finishing the game, suddenly being back in the arcade, and our friends standing around expectantly asking if we won.  The score would tell us, and if we blew it I'd think we'd be frustrated at how every time we play this thing we forget what the hell we were trying to do in here. Did we save the princess, get all the gold coins, find the hidden key?  Shit, I totally forgot about that, I was so in the game.

The wise ones would start to figure out how to bring some of that goal info into the game. Perhaps they already have and are playing along side us.  But they are out to win, so they aren't sharing that info.  Maybe I brought some of it with me, but I'm not sure what it is.  Sometime I might suddenly remember.  I hope it's not too late to win.