Why am I in Survival Mode When Nothing is Happening?
We’ve Already Won the Human Game on the Highest Difficulty, Now it’s Time to Go Back and Do It on Easy Mode
I used to dig playing videogames. By default, I’m one of those hipsters that still enjoy the nostalgia of playing games on an SNES or the occasional N64. But that’s only because my knowledge and skills stopped around once I hit college and Xboxes were the norm. I tried playing with friends a few times, but the whole thing where one joystick controlled the character and the other controlled the camera made me dizzy.
Whenever I’m visiting my home state (which isn’t often anymore), I make it a point to see my brother, who can often be found at some point in the day playing Assassin’s Creed or something on his PS4. When I ask about the different games, i find myself pining even more for the simpler games on simple consoles as my brother will describe the intricacies this side mission which benefits the overall quest in this way while these other two side quests are boring and don’t have much to do with the plot while this other minigame within the game is just for fun or something like that all the while you have to find fragments of something in order to level up your weapon and armor. It all sounds way more overwhelming than trying to rescue a princess with mushrooms from a monster reptile (or rescue a princess with magic artifacts from an evil sorcerer).
But I realized at some point how more and more, game developers aren’t just trying to make games that entertain people, they’re trying to make games that get people to keep playing by keeping them busy.
It’s a lot like our real lives, but without all the power-ups and armor upgrades.
This is the most frustrated critique I often have about "modern society / modern culture," in that so many things are often vying for one’s attention, not to mention the unyielding emphasis on the dis-ease of being busy.
Watch about 10 minutes of live TV on any channel and almost immediately one is inundated with faces and words telling us to watch this, buy that, try this, eat that, ask about blah blah. This is on top of all the bullshit we have to remember all the time anyway. Got to pay bills, got to spend this amount every month, got to save this amount every month, what’s my social security number again? Oh and don’t forget about the surprise vet visit if something is wrong with your pet or the unexpected visit to the mechanic when the car conks out.
It’s no wonder then that people often find themselves #stressedthefuckout even if they find a chance to just sit and breathe. Many people don’t know how to sit, breathe and be with themselves because "modern culture" is literally trying to train our brains to be busy. In turn, when many do find a moment to sit in silence, just being there with thoughts and body, they don’t know what the hell to do and the brain freaks out due to lack of stimulation. This dis-ease of stress is particularly rampant in America.
The thing is, we humans are already +A survival mode gamers. We’ve been playing the game of life in survival mode literally since we started existing.
I could go into why that is and how the fear based areas of our brains have evolved over the years, but that’s a whole other separate topic. If you would like to know more, you can check out my article on Elephant Journal.
The point is, we’re number 1 when it comes to survival. Our life spans are even increasing! For the vast majority of us, we’ve gone from wondering about “What animal do I need to track and hunt for a week’s worth of food without dying in the process” to just “Should I go to the grocery store or just order some pizza and cheesesticks online?” Yet, even though we’ve made life much more comfortable for ourselves and have made the game of life much more manageable, many of us are still treating it as though we’re playing it on the highest setting of difficulty.
Americans are breaking records when it comes to stress!
In fact, we’ve been playing the game so far on the highest setting of difficulty for so long, it feels as though now we’ve made the easy level of sitting, breathing and relaxing the most difficult!
So isn’t it about time we switched from survival mode to relax mode?
This isn’t to suggest there’s not any more work to be done anywhere and all of us can just kick our feet up and not worry about stuff. However, many of us are now at a point where we can at least take time and be a little more introspective.
Or, at the very least, we can take a few moments to simply sit with ourselves and breathe.
Bryce Post is a certified meditation coach offering personalized, online classes to meet the needs of any individual. You can check out his website or follow him on IG to learn more.
You could also read another article or two below he wrote about taking a few moments for yourself.
