So how do we find the middle path? We can find the middle by embracing the heuristic process without cognitive prejudice. It would be like the “Tao” of you. Each person naturally generates these rules of thumb I mentioned earlier, not consciously, but naturally. We get confused when we try to overlay rationalization on top of that.

I have certain personal heuristics that make perfect sense to me, but would seem very strange to others. Because they would not experience the outcomes I would, the choice wouldn’t have the same consequences. I know these things from personal experience, but if I try to “know” instead of just understand the rules I would make up to go with the rules that naturally occur for me, it would be more of a negative effect, burdens rather than tools.

If your personal heuristics, or rules of thumb, together make up a game, then society has us locked in meta-gaming. It has us convinced that we can’t accept the rules as they exist for us, that we aren’t smart, strong, fast, or attractive enough. Does it actually succeed in providing the solutions to the problems it tells us we have?

What is meta-gaming? Meta-gaming is trying to beat the game structure instead of playing the game, trying to find life’s cheat codes, ways to bend the rules to our advantage. We only actually cheat ourselves because we lose sight of our own personal rules in the first place and get stuck playing someone else’s game.

We get stuck in a ‘who is on first’ kind of conversation with reality? Indeed.

Meta-gaming seems like a broader view, perhaps a higher view and not merely cheating. Well, people do esteem their own analytical abilities, and they can serve you well. I offer that they can also seriously betray you.

Perhaps an example of the game of life versus the meta-game… We all are born with a set of traits that will affect our behaviour throughout our life, traits that affect our temperament, our physical senses, our personal affinities, everything really.

With news programs, for example, I ask myself “Do I REALLY NEED to know this?” and often, if the answer if “NO!” then I will turn the darn thing off. That isn’t a bad question to ask yourself, but not really what I meant by meta-gaming. Meta-gaming is always context sensitive. The meta-game of chess has little to do with grocery shopping.

So the early game shows up in childhood play behaviour. Some children like kinetic activity, screaming and yelling and running around, others like quiet play in the dirt, perhaps poking at a bug, others still take to books and such activities early and prefer to do these things, but at this early stage their behaviour is an outgrowth of innate personal traits. As we grow older we acquire add-ons, social interpretations of any of our earlier games of play behaviours.

And then we’re told if we eat our vegetables we’ll get dessert? Indeed. So a rule system is introduced? Yes, one that could in theory accentuate our innate rule system. Ideally would foster our innate potential, but does it most often?

Our personal game gets masked by the social game, and the social game to date is poorly designed to optimize the potential of its players.

I ponder indecision as second-guessing. Indecision is second guessing.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~