It all started with a video game...

Long ago, in a computer now repurposed as a Linux terminal, I bought a game called Project Zomboid. It was like many RP games I had played before, this one being different in that it was a zombie game, but a role playing game all the same. The difference with this game was that it was so easy to die and you couldn't save the game. It was inevitable: I was going to die. Over and over again, each time foolishly believing that this was the time I would live, but the truth is that only when we decide to stop trying to live so feverishly can we truly survive. Only by giving up on mastery can we become free of servitude. Thus I began my personal journey to flee the prison that is the ego of knowledge and be free in the land of mediocrity and wonder and sometimes ignorance. This journey had just begun, when I heard a radio program talking about the virtues of living ones life as one plays a video game. Now at first glance you may think that's nuts: life has consequences, there's no saving your spot irl, all these things you may be saying to yourself, and you'd be right. The real crux of the program was to approach your life like you do your character in a role playing game. In an RPG a player will grind away hours of monotonous, repetitive in game activities in order to level up a useless skill, but would never consider doing such things for themselves. Thus the idea of treating myself as if I were a character sheet in D&D or a charcter in Project Zomboid and how that may change my perspective about "self improvement". I like my characters to have a broad range of skills and I am always looking for ways to passively gain XP and multiple those gains. One also finds that the more time and effort that they put into a character the more you begin to care about it and are sad to see them go. In this way ones own self improvement can lead to a greater sense of self worth and love, not from the vantage point of ego or master over others, but from ones own sense of self investment and the humility that it could all end at any moment. Thus the words above the entrance to the temple at Delphi are important to this day: Know Thyself Nothing Overmuch Certainty, then Ruin