Some Sort of Meditation

Discover your own mind maze

Great Fun

In my game The Word Is Not The Thing I created a fun little mind maze as the final level.

Sure, fun is a relative word, but to go into this can indeed be great fun if you follow it for yourself without thinking that I am trying to tell you something.

I mean, it’s absolutely no fun if you just merely think you are receiving what I am saying and will either reject or accept it.

It’s only great fun when you take what is being said and run with it as if these are your own words, as if these are your own questions, as if it is you going into your own self.

Meditation

So, in the final level of The Word Is Not The Thing, I go into myself, making my way through a mind maze, getting to the final boss which is a web of words in which I’m using to escape from a deep down feeling. A sort of meditation, if we are to use that word.

Meditation in the sense of not only observing my own use of words to escape from a deep down feeling, but to flat-out discover that I am the same as that which I am observing. To discover that I am the deep down feeling.

Going on a Journey Together

But, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s get back to feeling the painful emotion. I mean really feel it. It’s either there, throbbing, or it’s not.

In the game, as I make my way to the final level, the game attempts to bring out this deep down feeling through its setting, atmosphere, scenario and choice of words. I go through 3 days of increasingly emotional words, observing in myself if there is any feeling behind specific words when I destroy them.

What I’m trying to get to is the deepest hurt, shame, pain, or whatever you want to call it. The one I’m hiding from. The one you’re hiding from. The one the person next to you is hiding from. The one that’s hiding throughout society’s fabric, seeping through more and more in our everyday interactions.

I have been successful in blocking it out here and there, with my so called coping mechanisms, but it’s still a constant. You know, when you’re uncomfortable in silence, or when you’re alone. And so, as in the game, as if you’re in front of a mirror, enter into your head.

Disclaimer

I think it’s important to say that you are not here trying to get rid of this painful feeling. You are merely going into it, seeing if you use words to escape from it. Getting rid of this feeling is what we’ve perfected as a society. That sweet temporary relief is the bane of our current culture as it’s set up. There is no true understanding of our own selves, and thus this feeling is ever present, no matter how successful we are at temporarily avoiding it.

The Mind Maze

We’ve all got our own mind maze, so let’s discover your mind maze. We’ll go through it, and get to the final word that you’re using as an escape.

You have lost all that is close to you. The very home and certainty you have come to know seems to be breaking apart. The family you have spent all these years building no longer feels like a family at all. Your child has suddenly passed away and what was once a loving and carefree household seems empty and reeks of stale happiness amongst the persistent murkiness of depression. Your wife comes across as distant and empty and nobody seems to notice what you’re going through, they merely just talk at you.

There’s no sign of relief from this state of mind. There is no sense that things are going to get better. In fact, they are quickly getting worse. You can’t seem to shake off this feeling this time around. It’s finally taking over completely.

Now step in front of a mirror and go inside your head. Go on a journey for yourself to discover if the word is ever the thing.

So how to look? How to see? There’s the feeling, and then there’s the word. Destroy the word and you’re left with the feeling. Simple. Some more words come into your head to explain away the feeling again. Those are just another set of words aren’t they, so let’s destroy those too. What are we left with? If the feeling is still there, what’s the point of this? A part of you says “obviously, the word is not the thing, so what?”

So we’re back to another set of words. Let’s destroy those too.

Watch out for those positive words, they also get in the way.

What you want to get to is your trigger words. And destroy those too. The final set of words you get to is your final boss in your own mind maze.

Freedom

In the final boss sequence, when you get to the final word and remove it, you’re left with the feeling. And you either say to yourself ‘so that’s what the feeling is?’ or expect some explanation, or jump to a conclusion, or brush it off. But, if you see that you’re using another set of words to get away from the feeling, if you understand that the word is not the thing, actually see it, then perhaps you’ll be free of it in that seeing. The mind that is capable is one that sees, is intelligent, is free.

That very seeing, that understanding that the word is never the thing, is freedom from the deep down feeling. It’s not that you see and after you are free from it. The very act of seeing, understanding, is the only freedom from it because you are no longer running away and can process it. And then you truly understand if you use words to escape from a feeling, not because somebody says you do.

Don’t merely take or not take my word for it. You have to go into it for yourself, or it’s no fun.

There’s the level of observing yourself, and then there’s the realization that you and that which you are observing are the same thing, that there is no difference, that the feeling is you and you are the feeling.