Recursive Words

Why is it that just as you start to think you’re getting on top of things, and reluctantly begin to think the world isn’t quite so bad after all, the world will find a way to shit on you from a colossal height.

I can’t really tell you what’s going on, because it’s not my story to tell.

Still though… (shakes fist at the universe)

I’m sitting in the junk room, listening to some no-name playlist on the computer. The rest of the household are in bed – apart from my middle daughter who is working through to close at Wetherspoons.

There’s SO little to report at the moment (well… apart from the elephant in the room, vaguely referred to at the start). My entire life seems to revolve around work, washing up, or content creation for YouTube.

I sometimes wonder if my purpose – if there is any purpose to our existence – is to pick up, fix, and put back together. Not just houses, or computers – people too. I seem to spend most of my time trying to put my kids back together, or help them through whatever has most recently befallen them (there always seems to be something).

Not only am I the “Bank of Dad”, I am also my children’s best friend, their mortal enemy, in their way, or not helping enough.

I wish life came with an instruction book. After playing it for however many years I’ve managed to so far, all I seem to have learned is that winning isn’t in the deck of cards. The best you seem to be able to hope for is to get to the next move more or less unscathed.

When the children were little they regularly played a board game called “The Game of Life” – where you would advance around a board on dice rolls and gain a husband or wife, children, a house, premium bonds, savings, and so on – and hopefully reach the end having done remarkably well for yourself.

Can you imagine the real-world version of it? Where you just hope to get to the end. That’s it. You just hope to move at least one square forward each time, but somehow never leave the middle of the board. As soon as you think you’re making progress, the board will expose its rigged nature and set you back for daring to hope.

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I’ve unwittingly discovered that this IS a simulation – and it’s rigged to keep up from progressing. Just as Truman lived in an enclosed seaside town, maybe the simulation we all share has bounds that present as misfortune.