Game of Life

In my contemplation of life’s existential questions, I have formulated the following thoughts:

There exists a higher power (referred to as God) who desired amusement. To achieve this, God created angels, smaller versions of himself, and bestowed upon them the ability to experience enjoyment. To further enhance their entertainment, God devised a grand and captivating game called life.

Within the game, God fashioned galaxies, planets, and everything encompassing them: animals, mountains, oceans, and more. He added numerous features and challenges to make the game immensely enjoyable. Humans, endowed with intelligence and emotions, were created as couples, each with distinct thoughts and feelings. They were fashioned in diverse colors, ethnicities, and languages. Time and an array of other elements were introduced to ensure the game’s superiority and eternal intrigue.

The rules of the game are simple for all participants:

Before entering the game, players must forget their previous existence as angels. They can only enter the game during the birth of a newborn baby, becoming the soul of that baby. The game commences as soon as the baby begins to cry. Prior to inhabiting the baby’s body, players are unaware of the baby’s settings, such as gender, parents, location, language, ethnicity, or even the time period they are entering. All these details remain unknown, and players willingly embark on this game of surprises, discovering each aspect gradually. Competing with countless other players, who also have no recollection of their angelic past, everyone starts from the same position.
The objective is akin to a video game: players strive to accumulate as many points as possible by progressing in life and performing virtuous deeds.

Engaging in idleness and making no effort to improve life results in no progress and, consequently, no points, even for those with good intentions.
Working diligently and pursuing a career without integrity, resorting to lying or cheating, also yields no points.
Points are awarded for various actions, such as a smile (1 point), feeding the hungry (25 points), or making a profound impact on someone’s life (500 points). The exact calculations remain unknown. Negative points are also assigned for transgressions, such as lying (-5 points), stealing (-50 points), or murder (-500 points). Furthermore, those born with disabilities or experiencing exceptionally challenging lives as children receive bonus points upfront (e.g., 5,000 points). Each individual is assessed within their own circumstances, ensuring eventual balance throughout their life. Wise individuals, such as prophets, periodically emerge to remind humans (angels) that this is indeed a game, offering guidebooks and teachings.
Points are more accurately tallied after individuals reach adulthood, typically around the age of 14 or 16, depending on the person.

When a player dies, the game concludes, but it is not the end. They revert to being an angel, analyzing their previous game, observing other angels’ gameplay and their respective point totals. They may harbor regrets about their performance and eagerly await their next opportunity to begin a new game by inhabiting another body. However, upon reentry, they must forget that this is a game, thereby initiating a fresh competition from scratch, unaware of the underlying reality.
Players have the opportunity to enter as many games (lives) as they desire within a given timeframe, perhaps spanning 10,000 or even 1,000,000 years. Nevertheless, when comparing angelic years to human years, the latter appears exceedingly brief. Even if a game seemingly lasts 60, 70, or 80 years, upon death, players abruptly realize their angelic nature, understanding that their participation in the game lasted merely a day or a week. This sensation resembles the realization upon waking from a dream, where one comprehends that the dream transpired in mere minutes.
Each new game presents players with distinct locations, timeframes, languages, and more, enhancing the excitement and leading to adjusted scoring.
Considering the vast number of stars, planets, and galaxies in the universe, it is plausible that Earth is not the sole venue for this game. Countless other games, Earths, planets, angels, humans, animals, and oceans may exist. Hence, it is essential to persevere, maintain an open mind, and strive to do good while accumulating points.

In summary, these reflections emphasize the captivating nature of the game of life, urging individuals to work diligently, embrace diversity, and amass as many points as possible.

(5/27/23 better written by ai)

Since writing my initial article about the game of life, my thoughts have evolved and gained more depth. Initially, I believed that when entering life, one wouldn’t know their location, parents, social status, race, gender, language, economic situation, or family. However, I now believe that we choose these aspects ourselves. In fact, they are created by us. This possibility suggests that we seek a greater challenge, creating or selecting scenarios that test us.

For instance, before coming into the world, I knew my abilities, intelligence, appearance, parents, country, religion, language, and city. I was aware of everything in advance. Yet, I accepted the challenge, determined to complete the game without quitting, meaning without resorting to suicide, and to make the best of my capabilities. Another scenario is that the entire world, including my family, friends, and surroundings, is a product of my imagination or simulation. Not only do I accept the challenge, but I also create it and live within it.

This implies that there are millions or billions of different simulations, planets, Earths, and galaxies, each a product of someone’s imagination. We aren’t just building one city, country, or planet; we’re creating many simultaneously. How do we manage all these simulations at once? I believe that in existence, the game transcends place and time. Currently, I am playing within my given location and time—let’s say New York in 2024. Simultaneously, in another simulation, I might be in Africa in 10,000 BC, or somewhere in Europe 50,000 years in the future. All these characters and lives are being played out at the same time by me or by fractions of me.

Ultimately, everything is happening within my mind, and I am creating my own reality. One might ask, what is reality? Real reality is the game. You do your best within your given circumstances and earn good points—that’s the essence of it.

Another theory arises when observing babies. Their serious expressions and intense gazes can make you wonder if they know the secrets of the game. Perhaps they have just completed another game and ended up in their current small bodies. If they could talk, they might reveal their previous experiences, but they can’t until they start speaking. Sometimes, three or four-year-olds say things that make a lot of sense, possibly because they remember fragments of their earlier existence in a different game.

No matter what you are—a baby, a dog, a fly, or a tree—you are all part of this game with a soul. You do your best within the given circumstances, and that’s how you progress, win, and have fun. Because, at the end of the day, the game is all about having fun.

I observe many people getting distracted by the hardships of life. They spend countless hours working—eight, ten, fourteen hours or more each day for many years. Their existence revolves around making money, surviving, or taking care of their families. In the process, they forget that life is a game. They lose sight of its beauty.

Walking through Manhattan, I see people leaving restaurants, offices, barbershops, or bars to smoke. Their eyes are blank; they don’t know why they are there or what they’re doing. The stress of their busy schedules takes them away from real life. They forget it’s a game. They’re caught in the rat race, driven by survival—earning money for food and shelter. This initial need transforms into a quest for better living conditions, more delicious food, a television, a car, a house. The cycle continues, driven by greed, and they lose touch with the essence of the game: our humanity and what makes life fun—like smiles, helping each other, and being part of nature.

For some, if they are not working, life revolves around family, friends, fame, and other distractions. Losing the understanding of the game leads to addictions like alcohol, gambling, sex, or overeating to escape stress. When we return to our true selves and realize that life, even with its hardships, is a fun place, we see that challenges are given to us to solve and feel better about ourselves. The higher power doesn’t give us hardships we can’t handle. If physical hardships are too great, they lead to fainting or death, segueing to a new game. Mental hardships, however, can be reframed and managed by changing our perspective.

For example, children from rich families may have no physical challenges—they have nannies, private chefs, drivers, and tutors. Yet, they might experience intense mental stress, leading to self-harm or worse. Despite not facing physical hardships, they are mentally defeated. This illustrates that most hardships are mental.

If we start thinking that everything happens in the mind or heart—where the brain is logical, and the heart is emotional—we can tell ourselves that we can manage. For instance, accepting renting a place without stressing over buying a home reduces mental strain. If everyone agreed that having a place to stay and food to eat is enough, the stress would diminish. However, if everyone did this, the game might lose its excitement.

The real challenge is to remember that life is a game and to maintain balance in work, eating, having fun, and purchasing material goods. That’s the mark of a true winner.

june 22 2024 nyc

In my whole life I thought about who I am, what’s the purpose of all these, what happens if I am good or bad, what happens when I die, etc. Below are my thoughts.

There is a (God) and wanted to have some fun. Created smaller forms of himself and called them angels. God wanted angels to to have some fun too, so he created a big beautiful game called life.

For the game setting, he created the galaxy, the planets, earth and everything within, all animals, mountains, oceans, etc. He added a lot of features and challenges to make the game super fun, like made humans smart but also emotional, he created them as a couple, man and woman but made them think and feel differently, he created them in different colors, ethnicities and languages, he created time, and tons of other features so the game is very superior, never bore.

The game rules are simple for all players:

1- Before you enter the game, you must forget who you were (an angel), you can only enter the game during the birth of a newborn baby, that will be your avatar during the whole game, As soon as that baby starts crying, you enter as baby’s soul, and the game officially starts. Before entering the baby’s body, you don’t know the baby’s settings, your gender , who your parents are, what location, what language, what ethnicity. You don’t know whether you are a poor or rich, a peasant or a king, you also don’t know the time frame, whether you are entering in BC 3,000 or year 30,000. As a player all these are unknown to you, you just agree on joining this game full of surprises, and start figuring out one by one from the scratch. In this game you compete with all other players; millions or billions of them, who also don’t remember they were angels before, so everyone is in the same situation.

2- The purpose is, just like a video game, you try to collect as many points as you can by progressing your life and doing good at the same time.

-If you’re being very lazy and doing nothing to improve life, just siting down all day, you’re not progressing at all, so you’re not gaining points even if you were a good person.

-If you’re working hard, waking up early, following a career, but if you’re lying, cheating while doing it, you’re not getting points either.

– For example each smile is 1 point, feeding hungry is 25 point, working hard to changing someone’s life is 500 point, etc.

– You also get negative points like lying is -5 points, stealing is -50 points, murder is -500 points etc, no clue how the points are calculated. Also, if you were born with a disability or a very hard life when you are a child, you get extra points upfront like 5,000 points, everyone also will be judged with their own circumstances, so eventually everything will balance out during life. Time to time Prophets / wise people come to life to help whenever humans (angels) forget that this is a game, they also bring guidebooks and teachings.

– Your points will be counted more efficiently after you become a man or a woman, perhaps after 14 or 16 year old depending on the person.

3 – When you die, the game is over, but it’s not the end, you go back to being an angel, you analyze your last game, you see other angels how they’re playing, see your points and other angels points, you wish you did better and you wait for your turn and then start a new game by getting into another body, but again you must forget this is a game, so you will start competing again from the scratch, no clue what’s going on 🙂

4- You get to enter as many games (life) as you wish within given time (10,000 years or 1000,000 years who knows), however when you compare the angel years vs. human years, the human years will be very short, even if you feel like the game goes on for 60-70-80 years, after you die, suddenly you realize you were an angel and it has been only a day or a week you’ve been in the game, very similar to when we’re dreaming, when we wake up we realize it has been a dream of perhaps a minute or two.

5 – When you’re entering a new game you get to have a different location, time-frame, language, etc each time to make this more fun, so your scores will be calculated accordingly.

6 – Since there are millions of stars, planets in the galaxy, the earth may not be the only place where the game takes places, there can be thousands of other games, earths, planets, angels, humans, animals, oceans etc.. in this life, just keep working hard, keep your mind open and try to do good and get as many points as you can.

Serdar Acar / Dec. 14 2022