Player selection
When you played the game Mortal Kombat as a millennial child (or you know… whatever), there was a hidden quest to complete before you even began fighting.
Some had enough practice to find out which character was the best from their perspective and experience. They would have no problem pressing that button to select their go-to guy or gal. For others, this process of choosing the best fighter would depend on the choice of the other person. This person likely knew that the strengths and weaknesses of all the archetypes lay within the circumstances presented.
I’ve been loads of characters in real life and this was most evidenced one day when I invited several people from different times of my life to an escape room for my birthday. I think I’d mentioned all of them to one another at some point and some of them may have even known each other a bit due to the geographical constraints of a physical escape room, but I realized they all knew a different part of me: different strengths, different weaknesses. The most perplexing to me at the time was that all of my friends and family thought I was a robotic genius with no feelings and my boyfriend at the time thought I was a complete moron who cried for attention. The weirdest thing of all was that neither were completely wrong.
It dawned on me another day, this idea that some humans exist as non-player characters. They drone around running the functions to do the same shit over and over. I realize now that those people have just pressed “A” as soon as the game started (or “X”, depending on which gaming system and I’m probably wrong about both of those but it’s really beside the point). The game starts when you wake up in the morning and decide (or don’t) what you will do for the day. Those people playing a game that loops chose the path of efficiency. They even say the same shit over and over. The non-player characters are actually patterns in nature, animals, the moon, all these places where our ancestors found symbolism.
Think about it, our ancestors lived in the world. Every moment was cloaked in fear of the unknown. They had to prove everything for themselves if they really wanted to know something. They had to feel it or experience it or trust the one that told them it was so. Interesting, isn’t it? The only truth we can trust is our own experiences or those of the individuals we trust. Here I am believing a plethora of things that people I’ll never meet told me they found to be true. Still, within me exists the instinct of the trees and literally still (if I’m to believe what I’m told) the innate wisdom of bacteria. Every single generation all they way back to that tiny little speck has accumulated experiences I can’t even begin to imagine.
Imagine being a mitochondria, getting around, minding your own business, when all of a sudden, you are membrane to membrane with a big ass cell; there’s nowhere to go butt in. Inside this other unsuspecting cell you determine that things aren’t so bad and maybe you could take up residency. Its essentially just a gooeier version of your last habitat and in here it felt cozy and safe.
Now from the perspective of the bigger cell: “there’s this fucking free-loader chilling in my bubble (literally), but he also magically produces energy. I am thinking, maybe he’ll be willing to exchange some of that with me if I threaten to kick him out. The gentle giant goes within to speak with the mitochondria, they work out a deal and they live happily ever after.
UNTIL ONE DAY. A chloroplast notices the deal the mitochondria worked out with the big guy. He also noticed the mitochondria was working really hard and that the big cell couldn’t see (since he was inside and all). The chloroplast approaches the big cell with a proposition for both. “If I can live in here then we don’t have to burn up energy moving around so much because I get my energy from that big ball of fire”. The two agree that this new green guy, as weird as he looks, just might be worth the wager so they let him in and then you have plants.
Obviously I made that up and some may even say I didn’t even explain it properly but it’s all made up anyway. From the person I got that from, from the person they got that from, all the way back to 1837 when Hugo von Mohl first discovered the chloroplast (if I’m to believe what I’m told). This is a character, not Hugo, well, yes Hugo also, but the perspective from which I am writing- right now. The devil’s advocate, which can, in fact, act in good faith, but most people that try to take on the role just turn out to be really annoying to converse with.
A good devil’s advocate can move in and out of a player. It is the loyal dissenter that reminds you when you’ve identified with a myth too deeply. When we cannot escape the character we selected, we are no longer our self. In whatever way you can, keep the whole roster available. The more adaptable you can be, the more fit you are for whatever world you are presented with, on any given day. Start with the ancient texts, or classic novels, even a good BDSM blog will tell you how to move in and out of archetypes from moment to moment. lol… in and out….
The point is not to win an argument, it is to move the argument to the next level. We must never settle for a world where we cannot play with and share ideas. We must also never settle for a world where we just won’t.
