I think I figured out life

"This is an infinite essay. One I hope to keep updating as I experience more life."

Yes, I think I have. At least, how I want to approach mine.

2025 was probably the top 3 hardest years of my life so far. While I hoped it would bring me a lot of wins, it left me with a lot of learnings instead.

The biggest learning was understanding life. Or at least, enough to not suffer from the pain of not knowing.

Like many others, I have been obsessed with finding "purpose" of life. Or if not, at least a manual. Primarily so that I could win. Whatever the fuck "winning" meant in this context anyway.

However, to win I needed to know the rules. To know the rules, I had to know what game I was playing. And this is precisely where it clicked. The easiest way for me to not suffer any longer was to perceive life as a game.

The Game

Life, according to me, is a finite single player game where you get an option to play infinite sub games. Some multiplayer, some solo. Sometimes sub games have sub games.

Everyone starts with a character sheet. Race, gender, passport, aptitude, etc. These are starting stats. Not chosen, inherited. They determine which games are easier to enter, which are locked, and which come with invisible modifiers.

Some players start on hard mode. Circumstances, geography, resources. The game isn't fair. Some get unfair advantages. Others get unfair disadvantages. The difficulty settings are assigned at birth.

Difficulty at birth is only part of it. Luck is ongoing. You can play perfectly and still lose to randomness. A market crash. A diagnosis. A wrong place, wrong time. You can win every game and still lose if you picked the wrong ones.

Skills transfer unevenly across games. What wins in one can quietly destroy another.

You can choose to play as many sub games as you want, or as few. No external scorecard tracks which ones mattered. We all die at the end.

The (Sub)Games

Two games most of us are forced to play until we have enough leverage to not play them: academia and capitalism. A consequence of living in mostly capitalistic societies. This is where the language of ‘escaping the matrix’ comes from. But escaping isn’t about quitting all games. It’s about recognizing which games are mandatory, which are optional, and which were sold as mandatory but never were.

Then there are games we think we must play due to human psychology. The need to procreate, starting a family, the need for community, making friends. And some games aren't optional even with awareness. Biology. Aging. Illness. Grief. These aren’t games you chose. And they don’t come with an exit.

And what about love? Deep connection? Intimacy? I call family a "game" but does the metaphor cheapen it? Does framing relationships as games miss something essential?

There's also the game of human health. Physical, mental. This one runs in the background of every other game. Ignore it long enough and it starts affecting your performance in all the others.

And then we have side quests. Hobbies. These may or may not be included in the main quests.

There are also games you've been planning to play but haven't entered. Dreams. Some stay dreams because the entry cost is too high. Some because you're afraid to find out you're bad at them. Some because playing them would require quitting games you're already in.

And then there are invisible games. The ones you don't know you're playing. Status. Approval. Comparison. Proving yourself to people who stopped watching years ago. These run in the background, consuming resources, often without consent. The most dangerous games are the ones you don't know you've entered. You can't quit a game you don't know you're playing. But once you see it, you get a choice. Keep playing, or walk away.

Some games you don't even want to win. Creativity. Art. Play itself. The point is the playing, not the score.

In multiplayer games, other players affect your game. Competition, cooperation, spectators. Some help you level up. Some drain your resources. Some just watch.

And then there are moments when you step back from all the games. Just to look at the map. Admire it. Not playing anything. Just being.

The Patterns

A few patterns hold across all games:

• Skills transfer. What's built in one game often compounds into the next.
• Losing a sub-game doesn't end the main game. You exit with experience.
• Most suffering comes from playing games never consciously chosen.
• Though not all suffering comes from wrong choices. Sometimes you lose games you consciously chose. Sometimes you win games that hollow you out. Regret lives on both sides.
• The finite nature of the main game means every sub-game is a choice. Conscious or not.
• Every game demands time. You can't save it. Every moment spent on one game is stolen from another. There's no pause button. No retry from save point. Some games also demand money, credentials, or connections.
• Some games allow re-entry. Fail, learn, try again. Others don't. One shot, then the door closes. Some allow re-entry but at a steep cost. Not always monetary.

The Meta-Game

How most people find their "calling": some are naturally better at certain games than others. This is shaped by the environment of the first game (0-18 years). Nutrition, resources, early mentors, and mimetic desires absorbed along the way.

Most people end up playing only two games seriously: capitalism and family. Maybe that's why society treats these as the most important. They're the default. The ones you're expected to play. The ones where not playing feels like rebellion.

But here's the thing: choosing which games to play might be the hardest and most important game of all. It's the meta-game. The game that determines all other games.

The question shifts. Not "how do I win at life" but "which games are worth the finite plays?" Not "why am I behind" but "behind in whose game?"

Finally, I think the search for purpose assumes there's an answer outside the game. But perhaps the game is the answer. Choosing which ones to play, playing them fully, knowing when to stop.

The purpose of life, it turns out, might just be finding the purpose. Or maybe the search itself is just another invisible game.

And if this is just another game, at least it’s one I chose.