Agnostic Metaphor

"Agnostic Metaphor"



Life: A long process of people grabbing you, pulling you into different directions. Life: People’s grubby hands latching onto your soul and tugging. Life: Everyone battling for your allegiance. Be this. Be that. Be who you are, and who you are is what I want you to be. Religion, politics, careers, everything: it’s all a self sustaining game of who can get the most to join their “cause.” It’s all a self sustaining game of gaining might for right.

Contrary to what many believe, your soul is very tangible. People are touching it when they influence you. People can grab it when they’ve convinced you to be on their side. People are resting their hands on it right now. Can you feel them? The direction of your life is dictated by whose hands you truly feel. You go to where the hands mold you to go. And where you’re going, is where your friends are. These friends, these people who have shaped you and felt you, are all putting their hands in the middle – the middle being common purpose. You join them. You put your hand in the middle. Ready? Break. Go Team.

Life: Teams. We’re all constructing narratives on what the world is. One narrative is one team. Another narrative is another team. And so it is. Life: a self sustaining game whereby teams play with rules of infinite score and infinite time. There is no end to this game. Life: a self sustaining game played not by athletes, but by referees. We are judging each other on how to play the game. We are judging each other on how to live life. Point the finger, pass the blame, constant shouting matches scoring infinite points. 

Perhaps though, there is an end to this game. Perhaps you really can score. All you have to do is get the ball. The ball - plausible deniability. You can’t judge them, they have the ball. They didn’t know the rules. They messed up because they’re only human. You think it’s certainly plausible - they didn’t realize how they were living. You know what you do when they have the ball? You tackle them! You grab their soul and teach them the rules! You force them into your narrative.

Life: a self sustaining game of thoughts bouncing around in a pinball machine. Right when you try to say that you don’t understand these rules, right when you try to say that you simply don’t know, right when you try to say that you have plausible deniability, you get tackled by people flying your way. It’s all so confusing. Lights, weird noises, left flipper, right flipper. You’re not allowed to get the ball. The rules prohibit that. The ball will leave you, you’ll miss it and it will fall. You have to accept rules sometime. You have to accept a narrative.

And so it goes on. People’s grubby hands latching onto each other’s souls. The world works this way. The world works that way. You will be this. You will be that. You will be who you are and who you are is what I want you to be. You will find friends. You will find teammates. You’ll try to get everyone to accept your narrative. You’ll try to score points. If that fails, you can always try to get the ball. Life: a self sustaining game.

Me. I’m tired of this game. The game is just unending conflict. Life: unending conflict. Narrative versus narrative. I shout for a time out, but people just think I’m shouting for points, that I’m trying to get people to join my narrative. And so people continue to conflict with me. How do I cope with this unnecessary conflict? How do I be apart of it? How do I come to terms with it? I just don’t know. Uh oh. I have the ball. I have plausible deniability. And I think I’m about to be tackled. I’m sick of being tackled. I’m sick of being ripped apart. I’m sick of having to take sides. I’m sick of having to hate. I’m sick of the game. I’m sick of life. But I’ll continue. I just hope I can survive. I hope my soul survives. I hope it survives the self sustaining game.