Days 143-144: Playing Monopoly

11-12022013

source: http://occuprint.org/

I was playing the board game Monopoly with a bunch of friends, and when I stopped to think about a decision in the game the other players got impatient with me – and this was alright because I did not take it personally: according to the rules of the game I had all the right to stop and think about decisions, and I knew that people were reacting simply because they wanted to keep the game running at a smooth pace. There was one person I did not know very well who expressed his impatience particularly assertively (or maybe I just picked up his words over others') and for some reason his words triggered an interesting reaction within me. As I was already kind of losing within the gameplay and also confronted for my attempts to fix the situation (to not be the loser) my reaction was to kind of retreat, shrink and become “humble” with the thought “it's just a silly game” as if I did not care at all about what happens within the game – which of course was not true, as I was disturbed about losing and not getting my suggestions across.

What I realized as I was looking at this reaction after the situation was that I've seen a close authority figure use this same survival mechanism in situations where she has an agenda, but which she for the sake of “getting along” covers up by saying “I'm fine either way” and sort of retreats from the decision making process in a humilified way – which to me has never seemed completely sincere. It's like: “oh well, you just do your thing, I'll not be involved, I didn't care anyway”. I wonder if I've picked this up from her of if I've been using her behavior as a validator of mine.

So I'm wondering if this is a survival mechanism I utilize more often, this act of giving up as I see myself to be powerless to change the circumstances I'm in, and then pretending I did not care in the first place so that I could avoid admitting to having “lost”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get “sucked in” to gameplay so intensively that I've forgotten it's a game (not real) and started to apply myself as if it were real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lose my focus from myself as breath and body and instead focus on the game reality as the board, dice, pawns, fake money, objectives, opponents and the movement of all this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to focus on the objectives of the game instead of focusing on myself as breath and body and consequently start believing in the objectives of the game and adapt them as my own, resulting in me having a want/need/desire for a desirable outcome (winning) and a fear of an undesirable outcome (losing).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to act as if the game reality was real: as if I had shitloads of money, land to buy, properties to build and a handful of hostile people around me trying to rob me of my precious money (the only source of support in the game).

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how this game scenario prepares its players to face the world as fearful of others as other players are portrayed as greedy bastards that may take everything away by the whim of coincidence. [This of course may vary according to individual players, but I have so far not met a single person who would both enjoy playing Monopoly and keep the playing fair – and this is simply because the game system doesn't really support fair play, lol.]
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how this game prepares people to act according to self-interest in their lives justified with survival, motivated by fear.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how this game creates a world-view revolving around money and ownership.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lose my focus into the game reality and believe I was at risk of losing my only source of income (the game money).

[Lol, all of this sounds somehow extreme as if I had been tripping and fully believed myself to be within the game – to clarify, this was not the case. I am going through the smallest of motives that ran in my mind if even for fractions of a second.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify being insincere with the artificial situation of gameplay.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify others manifesting hostile, greedy and selfish actions by believing that what is done within gameplay does not affect “real life” - that gameplay is somehow separate from reality and that it doesn't carry consequences into reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that games serve as practice for “real life” as play is a tool for learning, and that a game revolving around money, buying, owning, competing and legally robbing “prepares” the ones playing it to practice this in “real life”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the gameplay, too, is reality as it happens HERE (as organisms moving and breathing and choosing) and nowhere else and thus cannot be separate from the reality, and that therefore it carries consequences in this reality as all that is here affects everything.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hide my desire to win because I wanted to appear “cool” and “above competition”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by seeing myself as “above competition” I see myself as separate from competition, as unable/unwilling to take any part in it, not realizing that by doing this I abdicate my responsibility as a part of a world that competes as I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the desire of winning / the fear of losing within me and refuse to do anything about it by changing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be unwilling to face my desire of winning / fear of losing and justify this refusal to face myself by seeing competition as something “bad” and “ugly” I wish to take no part in – not realizing that I am only able to make a clear decision to not participate after I have actually assessed the question (assessed myself within the situation); if I state I will not participate in competition before admitting and facing the existence of competition within me, I will be acting based on beliefs and principles and not according to what is actually HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to demonize competition and see it as something “bad” and “ugly”, not realizing I here separate myself from competition by not seeing it as one and equal to me and disempower myself from changing myself as a being who competes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize competition in itself holds no negative or positive value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look down on people who enjoy competing, projecting my self-blame on others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to win because winning would give me a sense of self-worth, not realizing that my worth is always the one and same and also one and equal to that of everyone else's.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing because losing would strip me of my self-worth and leave me worthless, not realizing that my worth is not something that can ever be taken away from me by anyone but myself and that even then it's illusionary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compete to win because I do not want to be “less than” the other players, not stopping to realize we are all of the same value no matter what imaginary roles we wear or lines we draw.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive other players to be a threat to myself personally as I have seen my self-worth to have been at stake, not realizing that even if I were stripped of all my game-money, game-statuses and mocked by other players, this all happens within an imagined setting the effects of which only become real when I participate in it.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on my attempts to get my suggestions across (to get approval for my agenda / to win) when I have “faced a wall” and seen myself to be powerless to succeed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive others not agreeing with me and wanting to do things differently as “facing a wall”, in other words “losing”, and thus perceive myself to have been “defeated” and respond by admitting to my defeat by retreating – not realizing there was no “victory” or “defeat” - just an outcome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive others disagreeing with me to be a “loss”, not realizing there is no value to others agreeing or disagreeing with me other than the practical value (moving through co-operation).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that instead of giving up I could re-assess the situation by considering what is here and then try a different approach to find a solution.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to move the responsibility of finding a solution (within the gameplay) to others as I gave up on finding one myself when facing conflict/disagreement, thus abdicating my responsibility over the entirety of the situation – not realizing that by doing this within gameplay I prepare myself to act like this in “real life” as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pretend I do not care about the outcome of the situation even though I actually do, because I fear someone will see me as a “sore loser” for not getting my suggestions across and judge me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear showing the fact that I am upset about “losing” because when I have shown it (not hidden it well enough) as a child I have faced ridicule. [This seems like a point I ought to open up more. Related to suppressing emotions.]

I commit myself to carry responsibility over myself, my choices and actions within gameplay as I see, realize and understand that it affects who I am, what I choose and how I act outside of gameplay and serves as practice and preparation for all other moments of life which I am to face.

I commit myself to utilize gameplay for facing myself and practicing solving actual conflicts.

When and as I lose my focus into a game, I stop and I bring myself back to myself by breathing and being aware of all of my body as a whole, relaxing tensions from muscles and straightening my posture. I remind myself the game is not real but a social agreement which ceases to exist when I stop participating in it. I then assess the practical value of the game at hand and see what I could actually learn from the gameplay. When I am stable within and as breath I return to the gameplay and face each moment breath by breath one at a time.