Life is a video game

Let’s get something straight right off the bat: we do NOT create our own reality. By “we,” I mean you, me, and every other self-aware, self-conscious member of the human race, and I don’t care how “enlightened” s/he might claim to be.

I realize that for several decades now the New Age has tried to tell you that you do create your own reality, and a few people have made a lot of money selling you “The Secret,” “The Law of Attraction,” techniques for “manifestation,” and so forth. But it isn’t true. In fact, if the recent research in quantum physics is correct, it’s absolutely impossible for us to create our own reality. (See “The Holographic Universe” on YouTube).

If you think about your own life honestly for a minute, you will easily see that I’m right. Would you really have created a lot of the experiences you have had if you had the choice? No, I didn’t think so.

My life has been awesome, for the most part. Yes, an abusive mother who beat me with a horse whip, two serious car accidents (one that broke my neck), major health problems as I got to my late ‘60s, losing my best friend to cancer far too early. I definitely would not have created all the negative experiences if I was in control. But there is no way I could have created most of the positive experiences either. The things that had to happen in the Universe for me to end up as captain of a whale and dolphin research ship in the Canary Islands – eventually swimming and touching and dancing with a wild whale – were completely beyond my ability to create. And that’s just one example out of many.

Do you really think someone who wins the lottery had the ability to create that experience for themselves? Not a chance. And why them and not you? Why can they create that and you can’t?

This is one of the saddest reasons why the New Age lies have been so damaging to us as humans. If they were true, then the only reason someone else wins the lottery and you don’t is because you 1) did something wrong and couldn’t create it, 2) weren’t worthy and didn’t deserve it.

So here’s the truth: No one deserves the experiences they are given in life, “good” or “bad.”

Corollary: No one earns their "good" experiences by "good" behavior.

I’m sure you’ve heard the age-old question: “why do bad things happen to good people.” In the Holy Bible, the answer is clearly stated in the Book of Job: God allowed Satan to fuck with Job to test his devotion. But what does that say about God? And what if you don’t believe in Satan?

The only answer that makes any sense is that all human beings are Players in a very big video game (see Simulation Theory on YouTube) where the whole point of the game is not to judge one experience to be “right” and another one “wrong,” or one experience to be “better” or “worse” than any other experience, but simply to play the cards one is dealt for that hand and exercise our free will to choose the reaction or response we want to have to those cards.

Bottom line: we can never change the experience itself, but we can always change the way we react/respond to it.

Now “Karma” takes on a whole new meaning. “Karma” is a rule of the video game that says if the Player is not completely satisfied with the way s/he reacted or responded to a particular experience, they are given the same or similar experience again later to offer them the opportunity to make a different choice. So Karma is not some punishment or repercussion handed down "from above," but a gift to every Player who would like a second chance to exercise their free will about their reaction/response to a specific experience.

Pretty cool, huh?