This is a series of posts I’m writing about my last year in Daygame:
I wanted to write a short post today – I promise that I’ll be writing a lot more towards the end of this year and beyond – about arbitrary goals (similar to the preamble of this set of lay reports). This post will be more about choice.
This topic came to mind recently – ironically given the nature of this blog – because of a Ben Shapiro Sunday Special I was listening to where he was talking with his guest about different belief systems, the values they provide and how that contributes to someone’s understanding of the meaning of life.
I count myself as agnostic. How can someone say for certain that there is no God(s)? It seems to me like arrogance of the highest order. Plus there’s Pascal’s Wager. Anyway…
It’s never been an issue to me for there to be no meaning or purpose behind something. That’s nice to have, but I’ve always found that wanting to do something is enough motivation and reason for me to do it. You’ve been put on this earth with some a-priori desires, whether they come from something spiritual, or are purely our genetics expressing their programming to encourage reproduction, and we can’t do anything about that. It’s our choice then to either fulfil those desires or struggle against them for another purpose. The thing I’m not worried about is where those a-priori desires come from.
If I wanted to channel Tolle in this post then I would say something along these lines: time is made up of infinitesimally small moments: Nows. In every Now, you are static. It’s only your action in this Now which will affect your starting position in future Nows. Given your starting point in each Now is set, there’s no need to worry why you’re there or what meaning was set for you in previous Nows. Just do.
This topic reminds me of the climactic battle between Agent Smith and Neo in Matrix Revolutions:
Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why, why? Why do you do it? Why? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?
[Smith becomes visibly agitated]
Smith: Is it freedom or truth?! Perhaps peace?! Could it be for love?! Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception! Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose! And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love! You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson! You must know it by now! You can’t win! It’s pointless to keep fighting!
[Smith now clearly enraged]
Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson?! Why?! WHY DO YOU PERSIST?!
[Neo manages to stand]
Neo: Because I choose to.
That is how I feel about my life. I do things and don’t care that there has to be a purpose or meaning behind them. I do them because I want to and because I choose to. I think that might be the highest form of self-control and self-dominance someone can have: you do things because you choose to do them.
Bringing this back to arbitrary goals and (supposedly) the theme of this series of posts: I will meet my arbitrary goal soon and I’ll retire from Daygame. As I say every time I say this: I’ll still be coaching, I just won’t be actively Daygaming for myself any more.
At the moment, I feel as if I’ve nearly got the Platinum trophy from Daygame and all I have to do is complete the last goal through some repetitive task. I know that I won’t change between now and then. I also know that in hitting that arbitrary goal that I won’t change as a person. I will just have completed another goal in my life and then I will move onto the next one.
It doesn’t make me sad and you certainly won’t find me on the internet trying to garner narcissistic supply from hitting the goal I worked to achieve. I knew what I was getting into when I started this. You get to select what you do in life. Once you’re there, or not, then you can select the next thing you want to do in life.
I enjoyed Daygame and made some incredible memories. I’m going to love family life and make more incredible memories. It is possible to enjoy something in life and then quit while you’re ahead before moving onto something else.
A Thomas Sowell quote I often return to is:
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”
If you move from the life of being a player, with all the accompanying dopamine release, to the life of a family man, with all the accompanying oxytocin and serotonin release, there’s a trade-off. You will always have to miss out on something when you change your goal in life, but that’s it, that’s the trade-off.
We can choose to follow three paths, two bad and one good:
Bad Path One: attempt to garner narcissistic supply by humble bragging about how our success actually didn’t actually complete us the way we hoped it would. The aim of this path is to not actually leave the original one.
Bad Path Two: reality weave that the old path was actually evil and that people shouldn’t take it (the ironic thing being that the guy could only reach the position he’s in by having taken said path to begin with).
Good Path: accept that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. You will never be 100%, full to brim, happy. You can only ever cover so much of your body with a too-small blanket. Pull it over your chest and your feet get cold. Pull it over your feet and your chest gets cold. The mature path of actual growth lies in accepting the size of the blanket and that you will spend part of your life enjoying one thing and other parts enjoying other things. Because you chose to.
Yours unfaithfully,
Thomas Crown
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Thomas Crown PUA 
Nice piece. And according to my life’s experiences all correct assumptions! I wish you all the best with your family, it’s a really beautiful experience (well, saying it three and a half years in—ask me again when they enter puberty 😉
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This comment should have been under part three but anyway, I also like this one, got me to refresh my philosophical basic knowledge. And I agree with you, although there are tons of angles to argue against you. Philosophy at the end of the day is mind-wanking, or the fuel to live an arm-chair life, better either go Daygaming or care for your family. Just do.
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