PLAYING THE MASTER GAME.... of life

I just came across this very powerful passage from The Master Game, a book written in the 1950’s by Robert S. de Ropp. To really embrace this extraodinarily powerful message, read it out loud !!

Seek, above all, for a game worth playing. Such is the advice of the oracle to modern man. Having found the game, play it with intensity - play as if your life and sanity depend on it. (They do depend on it.) Follow the example of the French existentialists and flourish a banner bearing the word “engagement”.

Though nothing means anything and all roads are marked “no exit”, yet move as if your movements had some purpose. If life does not seem to offer a game worth playing, then invent one. For it must be clear, even to the most clouded intelligence, that any game is better than no game.

But although it is safe to play the Master Game, this has not served to make it popular. It still remains the most demanding and difficult of games and in our society, there are few who play. Contemporary man, hypnotized by the glitter of his own gadgets, has little contact with his inner world, concerns himself with outer, not inner space. But the Master Game is played entirely in the inner world, a vast and complex territory about which men know very little. The aim of the game is true awakening, full development of the powers latent in man.

The game can be played only by people whose observations of themselves and others have led them to a certain conclusion, namely, that man’s ordinary state of consciousness, his so-called waking state, is not the highest level of consciousness of which he is capable. In fact, this state is so far from real awakening that it could appropriately be called a form of somnambulism, a condition of “waking sleep”.

Once a person has reached this conclusion, he is no longer able to sleep comfortably. A new appetite develops within him, the hunger for real awakening, for full consciousness. He realized that he sees, hears, and knows only a tiny fraction of what he could see, hear and know, that he lives in the poorest, shabbiest of rooms in his inner dwelling, and that he could enter other rooms, beautiful and filled with treasures, the windows of which look out on eternity and infinity.

The solitary player lives today in a culture that is more or less totally opposed to the aims he has set himself, that does not recognize the existence of the Master Game, and regards players of this game as queer or slightly mad. The player thus confronts great oppositions from the culture in which he lives and must strive with forces, which tend to bring his game to a halt before it has even started. Only by finding a teacher and becoming part of the group of pupils that that teacher has collected about him can the player find encouragement and support. Otherwise he simply forgets his aim, or wanders off down some side road and loses himself.

Here it is sufficient to say that the Master Game can never be made easy to play. It demands all that a man has, all his feelings, all his thoughts, all his resources—physical and spiritual. If he tries to play it in a half-hearted way or tries to get results by unlawful means, he runs the risk of destroying his own potential. For this reason it is better not to embark on the game at all than to play it half-heartedly.

Mapping My Life

I seem to be reading a bunch of great books these days - including a few that I've been 'meaning to get around to' reading for along time.

In the late '70s to early '80s I remember seeing a book on my parents huge living room bookshelf called 'Passages'. The only reason it stood out to a 10 year old was because the letters of the title were in the colours of the rainbow. Looked pretty ! But once I got it off the shelf, it was all about that adult stuff. Not kid reading and I wasn't interested.

Well, in NZ last year I went into a warehouse book store looking for a book to read on the flight home. 'Lo and behold, I came across 'Hilary's Choice' by Gail Sheehy. Now I've always been interested in Hilary Clinton - at least after she made some tough decisions to stay with Bill when he made some lousy choices. You know what I'm talking about. And although they were the 'boomer' generation when I was in my twenties, her choices still fascinated me.

So I grabbed the book about Hilary, but once I'd read the book I realised this was the author of 'Passages'. At that point I started tracking down a copy of 'Passages', only to realize that it was written in the mid-70s and not really up-to-date when it comes to what we're living right now.

Fortunately, Ms Sheehy has anticipated this and written a host of other books, including Understanding Men's Passages (as it sounds, 1998), New Passages (an updated version of the original, 1995) and The Silent Passage (about menopause, late 90's). I'm in the middle of reading the first two.

So what of New Passages? Well, its really a great read. Not only does it provide a general overview of how life is unfolding for myself and others RIGHT NOW, but its a well written book which provides some interesting, real person stories. Here are some quotes from the book.

On p 14...
We seem to be suspended from our spiritual selves. Vaclav Havel, the philosopher and former president of the Czech Republic remarked on the paradox of our times:

'Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we understand our own lives less and less. We live in the post-modern world where anything is possible and almost nothing is certain.'

Sheehy goes on to explain...
Awareness and acknowledgement of a higher authority have been shunted into the realm of magic and mysticism. The concept of a Creator or an Earth Mother who anchors us in the universe, not for ourselves alone but as an integral part of some higher self-perpetuating universal order, represents an affront to modern science and technology and gets in the way of arrogant human aspirations. But there must be a reason that we are living so much longer. What are we meant to do with all this leftover life? Surely we are not meant to regress into tribal warfare and cultural genocide.

Haval,'The only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the Earth, and at the same time, the Cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence.'

Then on p. 146, Sheehy is talking about the ‘little death’ during the passage from early adulthood to second adulthood that occurs somewhere in the mid- to late 40’s. She states,

The effort expended in creating and defending that (early adulthood) persona is exhausting. Once we stop being ruled by the need to prove ourselves to the world and begin to relax our vigilance around maintaining our false self – what a relief – we can start stripping down to what is real, not false or copied, to uncover our own authenticity.

On p 161, Sheehy comments on ‘older’ women...
The same strong push toward authenticity appeared in my interviews with contemporary older women. By the time they reached their fifties, most educated women have acquired the skills and self-knowledge to master complex environments and change the conditions around them. The send of ‘being my own person’ is profound. They become increasingly the people they want to be.

p 153
But second adulthood is not about giving up or coasting until it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. It’s about finding new value in life. The secret in the search for meaning is to find your passion and pursue it.

p 169
In order to continue to enjoy life and be productive, it is particularly important at this stage to feel anchored in something. We need to know what is absolutely relevant about our lives. If we don’t know already, this is the time to work at finding out. It will provide a sense of direction and anchor.

And of course, it continues on. So if you're trying to understand where you are in your current 'life cycle' this book may help. After all, the sub-title is 'Mapping your life across time'. And that's just what it delivers, in a very readable and fascinating way. What you would expect from a woman whose mentor is Margaret Mead.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. And if you're keen, 'Understanding Men's Passages' is pretty enlightening, too.

5 People You Meet in Heaven

Just read this great book by Mitch Albom - The Five People You Meet in Heaven - and thought you might like it.

Although its a quick read, it had a really strong impact on me. I've never really thought about what happens when you die. And I've never been too excited about finding out, either ! But this book has a great take on what happens, as well as providing insight into why we're here in the first place.

If you like Paulo Coelho's books (The Fifth Mountain, The Alchemist etc), then you'll enjoy this one,too. Mitch doesn't make you work as hard as Paulo does, but the story is very impactful all the same.

Here are some gems:

'Strangers are just family that you have yet to come to know.'

'Sacrifice is a part of life. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to........ Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.'

'Ain't you supposed to have peace when you die?'
'You have peace when you make it with yourself.'

'People don't die because of loyalty.'
'They don't? Religion? Government? Are we not loyal to such things? Sometimes to the death? Better to be loyal to one another.'

Xinran's story

For eight years, Xinran hosted an innovative call-in talk show for women in China, risking the wrath of the Communist Party. The first of it’s kind, her show Words on the Night Breeze won the trust of Chinese women, who told their stories to the nation for the first time. Here is her story of that time…

In 1989, Xinran changed the way evening radio was presented in China. In Words on the Night Breeze, her own radio show, Xinran discussed daily life in China – and received endless letters from women requesting her help. Discussing personal issues in the media was dangerous, but Xinran persisted regardless, feeling the dire need of her women listeners who were crying out for help. Fascinated and distressed by the stories that she read, Xinran made an official request to read some of the letters she received, during each program.

Six weeks later, Xinran’s request was accepted – on the condition that her readings only took ten minutes. Why such resistance ? Well, in 1983, after 40 years of internal strife, Chinese authorities began to ‘open up’ China. Until that time, the media was strictly controlled by the Communist Party. The only information available to the public was heavily censored and presented in identical monotones. This meant local officials had no power, and all requests were made to the Party. But Xinran persisted with her mission to gain an insight into the lives of everyday Chinese women, and changed the way radio was presented in the process.

The stories that Xinran heard were incredibly heartwrenching. Many stories were recorded on studio phones, by women who could not leave their names, for their personal safety. Xinran was forbidden to broadcast some stories – the truth was considered too dangerous or destructive by the Party. Through her compassion and persistence, Xinran touched the lives of many Chinese women, and was regarded as an inspiration.

One of the stories recorded by Xinran and outlined in her book The Good Women of China, is included below.

One particular woman (who could not state her name), told how women of her time were taught the ‘Three submissions and four virtues’:

• Submission to your father, then your husband, then your son; and
• The virtues of fidelity, physical charm, propriety in speech and action, and diligence in housework.

However, this woman was fortunate to be brought up by parents who had a broader view of society. But they were unable to stop her from joining the Revolution. A few months after she had joined the ranks, her outgoing personality was brought to the attention of Party officials. And on her eighteenth birthday they asked if she would like to join the Party.

She accepted with enthusiasm and was immediately given an unstated ‘mission to fulfill’. Two days later, her unknown ‘mission’ was accomplished, when she was married off to a Party official. This women told her story 40 years after her wedding day, still married to the same official. She cannot leave him for fear of retribution, and has neither love nor respect from her husband or children. Having concluded her story, this women said that she felt lighter as she had been able to speak out without fear.

It was stories such as these, and other cruelties and previously unheard truths, that Xinran's radio show brought out. Her show touched the lives of many women, who had lived in repression for decades and Xinran's radio show was their first and only outlet for their fear and frustration.

But the stories that Xinran heard through her radio show were often not allowed to be published. And her health suffered as a result of the conflict between what she knew and what she was permitted to say. So in 1997, Xinran moved to England to find out what it was like to live in a free society.

An inspired woman, Xinran continues to touch many women’s lives, and has saved more than one. Through her hard work, she has gained a significant public profile and extensive social network. Xinran continues to educate the western world about the mysteries of Chinese women's lives and culture and in doing so, bringing the east into the hearts of western women.

She is also the founder of The Mothers Bridge of Love (MBL), which strives to introduce an authentic China to the West and disseminate information about adopted Chinese children’s lives, and the lives of overseas Chinese in the West to people in China.

A Bottle of Wine (a very cute story!)

For everyone who is married, was married, wish they were married, or wish they weren't married, this is something to smile about the next time you open a bottle of wine….

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride. With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.

Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally…

"What's in the bag?" asked the old woman.

Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, "It's a bottle of wine; I got it for my husband."

The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said, "Good trade."