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The Road Less Travelled
When I was a child we played a game in the school yard called Marauders. Whoever was it had to touch another kid to make them a marauder. They kept this up until, theoretically, everyone became a marauder. I was lucky and always eluded the marauders, which meant I always won the game.
For a time all the kids pursued me in concert, but I always managed to get away. One day they stopped, and though I was the winner, my status had shifted from winner to loser. They were together and I was alone, outside the group. I now had a choice to either join the herd, or live as a hermit. While social necessity impelled me to choose the former, over time my basic nature drove me to the latter.
Those whose constitutions cannot accept the straight jacket of the game find themselves as outsiders, helplessly watching the world whirl about them. Outsiders belong to every culture, religion, and social strata. They are the witnesses, cursed with sight in the valley of the blind.
As the game is ubiquitous, we are caught in its net whether we like it or not. There is no opting out. Either we are playing it, or it is playing us. Anyone who attempts to be virtuous cannot do so without becoming a threat to all those who are complicit.
This places us in a very ackward dilemma. To join the game is to lose our soul. To remove ourselves completely is not sustainable- no one can survive completely detached from the rest of humanity. What then are we to do? A famous Chinese parable provide an anwer to this riddle.
Three monks journeyed across the countryside. One day they happen upon a great, wide river with a current strong and swift. It appeared impassable.
Immediately the first monk dove in. Young and strong, he swam directly towards the opposing shore. Half way across he began to tire and despite his struggle, the current overwhelmed him and he was swept down the river over the water fall.
The second monk was not as fit as the first, but far more pragmatic. He placed his fate in the hands of destiny and jumped in. In short order he too is swept over the waterfall.
Finally, the third monk made his attempt. Diving deep into the water he swam below the surface where the pull of the current was not as strong. After several seconds he surfaced, several hundred yards down river but on the other bank.
The strategy of each monk has a clear message: Go against the game and you might flirt briefly with success but sooner or later the sheer relentlessness of the Game will destroy you. Give yourself up to the game, go with the flow, and you will save yourself the struggle, but your fate is no different. Find a way to detach from the game, and you will gain perspective and hope; you will succeed with your soul intact.
The ideal to shoot for is to follow the path of the third monk. When you choose the route that is not necessarily the shortest, be prepared to suffer some scrapes and bruises. But know that with patience, fortitude and stamina, you can make it.
One way to navigate your way through the game without becoming its prisoner is to play it from the outside. This entails learning to play the players, rather than play the game itself. The Game is quicksand, if you get in too deep you will never get out. The objective then is to become free of it; stay on the periphery, engage and disengage at your pleasure not theirs. ____________
About the Author John Berling Hardy is author of the e-book "Have We Been
Played?- The Hidden Game Revealed." The insights contained in this series give you the Edge. To find out more about the carefully guarded secret shared by all those who enjoy power and prestige visit Have We Been Played.com.
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