Mark Manson's "Life is a Video Game" analogy - and the "cheats"

[excreationist]

For me, these is the most influential set of ideas I've come across in my life. I also like how these fit into a single web page. Mark Manson is the author of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" which I found pretty interesting. I like how he includes some humour.

Life Is a Video Game—Here Are the Cheat Codes

Welcome, Player One, to a strategy guide for the game known as Life.

markmanson.net

Some of the highlights:

You will face unexpected challenges and long periods of frustration. You will often struggle with self-doubt, feel overwhelmed by helplessness and loss

So when those things happen I now think to myself that it is normal.

If at any point, Life runs out of problems to give us, then as players, we will unconsciously invent problems for ourselves

I can especially identify with that because multiple times I've stopped worrying and have become manic and unconsciously created problems for myself causing my unbalanced happiness/contentment to end.

There are five levels in life:

Level 1 – Find food; find a bed to sleep in at night
Level 2 – Know you’re not going to die
Level 3 – Find your people
Level 4 – Do something that’s important and valuable to both yourself and others
Level 5 – Create a legacy

Recently my goal has been to create a legacy (with a video game). I became disappointed with my attempt but then I realised that I hadn't really achieved level 4 first - at the moment I've been a casual cleaner (either 3.5 hours a week or no shifts for weeks). Then recently I got some high paying computer work and then felt I'm ready to start to attempt level 5.
I find the following surprising about his description of level 3 - "most people suck".

Solutions are actions and pursuits that resolve a problem preventing it from continuing or happening again in the future. Distractions are actions or pursuits designed to either make the Player unaware of the problem’s existence or to dull the pain the problem may be causing.

So lately I can sense whether some things aren't really achieving much but it can be hard to stop them when I've started to watch the YouTube video, etc.

The more each Solution or Distraction is used, the easier and more automatic it will be in the future

It goes on to 5 "cheats":

CHEAT #1: I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS

CHEAT #2: WRITE THIS SHIT DOWN

CHEAT #3: STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING

CHEAT #4: STOP FANTASIZING

CHEAT #5: SHARE YOUR SHAME

The 5 "cheats" are more difficult to agree with but maybe I'll eventually agree with all of them.

I literally think that life is a kind of video game and I'm not sure how literally Mark Manson believes it. Mark Manson definitely does not believe the following part:

Entering these cheat codes is easy: just press Tab at the View Screen to access your Mind’s Eye. The Mind’s Eye is where you actively observe yourself and choose what to think about. From there, just type in the cheats below at the “Brain” prompt and hit ENTER.

So the web page said:

Life Is a Video Game—Here Are the Cheat Codes
Welcome, Player One, to a strategy guide for the game known as Life.

The wording is similar to the title of my work "Cheating in the Game of Life"


About this:

In 2008 I was in a creative writing class for people with mental illnesses. I wrote poems, made a comic, and wrote a true story that is mainly about an event earlier in my life where I later was hospitalised. Then it also covers my suicide attempt.
I initially was trying to hypnotise people who were reading my posts but I ended up hypnotising myself and eventually became catatonic.

At the time I believed that I was in a computer game a bit like the Matrix.

The early part of the web page is similar to the beginning of the M. Scott Peck book, The Road Less Traveled:

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck Book Excerpts

A book offering advice on how to intentionally navigate the challenges of life in a productive and positive manner

capacity-building.com

“Life is difficult…This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see the truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

About the purpose of problems:

Problems are what keep us occupied and give our lives meaning

......This steady barrage of unexpected problems gives the player a sense that she lacks control over her own Life, when in fact, the purpose of Life is not to control what happens to you, but rather control and choose higher level reactions to what happens to you.

So anyway the focus is on how well his ideas apply to life rather than whether it is literally a video game.

 

[Jarhyn]

The issue here is that if "life is a video game" by metaphorical consideration "fuck literally everyone who has 'exclusive main character syndrome'."

The reason the entire game usually is hell bent on killing the player, from a certain perspective, would be that "main characters are destructive assholes who kill, maim, destroy, and otherwise do whatever the hell they want without consequences! Too often the MC is the murder-hobo villain."

I propose that the book is "be a murder-hobo villain" written with far too many words.

 

[excreationist]

The issue here is that if "life is a video game" by metaphorical consideration "fuck literally everyone who has 'exclusive main character syndrome'."

Video games can have lots of players. BTW r/outside says:

A subreddit for *Outside*, a free-to-play MMORPG with 8 billion+ active players
There are no NPCs. Aside from animals, everybody is a "player".

Analogies don't need to completely fit.

The reason the entire game usually is hell bent on killing the player, from a certain perspective, would be that "main characters are destructive assholes who kill, maim, destroy, and otherwise do whatever the hell they want without consequences!

There's nothing about a desire to kill the player - just worrying them a lot.

Too often the MC is the murder-hobo villain."

I propose that the book is "be a murder-hobo villain" written with far too many words.

I can't see any implication of murder, hobos or villians.

 

[Jarhyn]

The issue here is that if "life is a video game" by metaphorical consideration "fuck literally everyone who has 'exclusive main character syndrome'."

The reason the entire game usually is hell bent on killing the player, from a certain perspective, would be that "main characters are destructive assholes who kill, maim, destroy, and otherwise do whatever the hell they want without consequences! Too often the MC is the murder-hobo villain."

I propose that the book is "be a murder-hobo villain" written with far too many words.

Video games can have lots of players. BTW r/outside says:

A subreddit for *Outside*, a free-to-play MMORPG with 8 billion+ active players
There are no NPCs. Aside from animals, everybody is a "player".

Analogies don't need to completely fit.

The problem here is that we are discussing the book the author wrote, the book of "of giving a fuck", which is "I'm the MC, yes the real MC, and all the NPCs are just Not Players, so will the real MC please stand up (sprays the crowd with bullets and picks up the glowing brocks of cash)."

And considering animals to not be players either is kinda dickish.

Enter The Paradox of Tolerance.

 

[excreationist]

The problem here is that we are discussing the book the author wrote, the book of "of giving a fuck",

No the web page I'm mentioning barely has anything at all in common with the book. He has written on lots of topics - not just what was in his book. We are only discussing one of his web pages.

which is "I'm the MC, yes the real MC, and all the NPCs are just Not Players, so will the real MC please stand up (sprays the crowd with bullets and picks up the glowing brocks of cash)."

Well r/outside is saying all humans are players. And the web page doesn't say whether others are players or not.

And considering animals to not be players either is kinda dickish.

That quote about players and animals is from a subreddit - not Mark Markson. The subreddit is saying that we are in a video game with players. Why would a person want to have an animal as a character? They'd have to pretend to not have human-level intelligence...

 

[Jarhyn]

The problem here is that we are discussing the book the author wrote, the book of "of giving a fuck",

No the web page I'm mentioning barely has anything at all in common with the book. He has written on lots of topics - not just what was in his book. We are only discussing one of his web pages.

which is "I'm the MC, yes the real MC, and all the NPCs are just Not Players, so will the real MC please stand up (sprays the crowd with bullets and picks up the glowing brocks of cash)."

Well r/outside is saying all humans are players. And the web page doesn't say whether others are players or not.

And considering animals to not be players either is kinda dickish.

That quote about players and animals is from a subreddit - not Mark Markson. The subreddit is saying that we are in a video game with players. Why would a person want to have an animal as a character? They'd have to pretend to not have human-level intelligence...

There's that gross "anthropocentrism" popping it's head up again...

Not all humans have "human level intelligence"; there's some overlap in intelligences between some humans and some animals.

To me, whether something deserves respect as a player is not based on what "level" their intelligence is at but based instead on whether they view others as NPCs or for that matter "a skank to gank".

Ideally, I would like to move away from ganking things at all. Whether anything else decides to join us at that point is on them.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Tell that to children being bombed in wars right now.

 

[excreationist]

Tell that to children being bombed in wars right now.

Actually it talks about that:

Level 2 gets a bit more complicated, because a lot of people do have a nice bed to sleep in every night, but they can’t sleep because of gunshots outside or bombs exploding over their city, or maybe Dad’s a drunk and keeps trying to set the house on fire.

None of these things are cool. Level 2 requires that you find a secure and stable home to base yourself out of. Getting past Level 2 requires finding a way to successfully remove yourself from these dangerous situations.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Tell that to children being bombed in wars right now.

Actually it talks about that:

Level 2 gets a bit more complicated, because a lot of people do have a nice bed to sleep in every night, but they can’t sleep because of gunshots outside or bombs exploding over their city, or maybe Dad’s a drunk and keeps trying to set the house on fire.

None of these things are cool. Level 2 requires that you find a secure and stable home to base yourself out of. Getting past Level 2 requires finding a way to successfully remove yourself from these dangerous situations.

Yeah but treating such a catastrophe like it's a video game seems kind of, I dunno, myopic and overly simplistic.

 

[excreationist]

Yeah but treating such a catastrophe like it's a video game seems kind of, I dunno, myopic and overly simplistic.

It’s just a single web page and I think it has many insights about life. I mostly just like the insights and just find the video game analogy interesting. Btw some video games do have extremely shocking content e.g. Manhunt which is banned in many countries where have to brutally murder people. Since it has so many topics on a single web page it needs to be somewhat simplified. Note I only quoted some of it and it seems you didn't actually read the whole web page before commenting - since you missed the bit about bombing.

 

[excreationist]

Yeah but treating such a catastrophe like it's a video game seems kind of, I dunno, myopic and overly simplistic.

Note that video games don't normally portray children being hurt or killed in wars due to problems with classifications and marketing... though I'm working on a game where you have to chop up children and babies as part of a war:

Controversial upcoming game: Brutal Bible Bloodbaths

In 2020 I made a top-down view prototype in Scratch for the university subject "Playcentric Game Design". Now I'm working on a game in Unity that has graphics a bit like Minecraft. Note that in the Koorong Christian bookstore there are 6 books about portraying the Bible in Minecraft: It is...

iidb.org

 

[excreationist]

Yeah but treating such a catastrophe like it's a video game seems kind of, I dunno, myopic and overly simplistic.

It's just saying that level 2 involves having a dangerous life and the idea is to escape that - as if it was a game. It fits children facing bombing well. It's just an analogy not absolute truth. Maybe it's like electricity flow being like water going through pipes and there being water pressure, etc.
Also about the levels:

Just because you Level Up doesn’t mean problems stop at previous levels. A bro’s still gotta eat (Level 1). We all need to be safe to accomplish anything (Level 2). Relationships take work (Level 3), yadda, yadda.

So think of Leveling Up as not necessarily going from juggling baseballs to juggling knives. Rather, Leveling Up is like going from juggling three knives to four, then five, and so on.

 

[Jarhyn]

So, and I say this as someone who bases their entire structure of ethics in agentic game theory, this whole thing strikes me, as it has others, as hopelessly myopic.

If life is a game, the only point to it is "how to make the game as enjoyable as possible for as many of the players as possible and everything and everyone is ostensibly a 'player'."

Generally this means, from my experience in 'games people enjoy together', this involves some PVP stuff, but with limited access and more skill-based advancement rather than legacy/nepo and pay-to-win, alongside an entire segment whose limit of merit is purely based on who manages to do the most interesting stuff with some individual but fairly universal allotment of resources, such that those who do well with little get access to the opportunity to have more with which to do more.

Accomplishing any of that IRL is going to be very hard though seeing as the "banker" of this "friendly" game seems to be a filthy goddamn cheater, and he's got a gun sitting on the table in front of him seemingly saying "just TRY and stop me, bitches!"

 

[excreationist]

So, and I say this as someone who bases their entire structure of ethics in agentic game theory, this whole thing strikes me, as it has others, as hopelessly myopic.

If life is a game, the only point to it is "how to make the game as enjoyable as possible for as many of the players as possible and everything and everyone is ostensibly a 'player'."

A relevant quote is:

At the end of the game, the person at the highest level gets to have the best funeral.

(that's what level 5, create a legacy, is all about)

I don't see what "make the game as enjoyable as possible for as many of the players as possible" has to do with it. It is about dealing with problems even including the Holocaust - not just about maximizing enjoyment. If you really wanted to maximize enjoyment would you be wanting to have lots of parties, fun and games, going to the beach, singing songs, etc? Some of that seems like distractions and the web page is about minimizing that.
It also says:

Problems are what keep us occupied and give our lives meaning
This steady barrage of unexpected problems gives the player a sense that she lacks control over her own Life, when in fact, the purpose of Life is not to control what happens to you, but rather control and choose higher level reactions to what happens to you.

i.e. the web page focuses on dealing with problems related to the 5 levels - not just about "maximizing enjoyment".

Generally this means, from my experience in 'games people enjoy together', this involves some PVP stuff, but with limited access and more skill-based advancement rather than legacy/nepo and pay-to-win, alongside an entire segment whose limit of merit is purely based on who manages to do the most interesting stuff with some individual but fairly universal allotment of resources, such that those who do well with little get access to the opportunity to have more with which to do more.

Accomplishing any of that IRL is going to be very hard though seeing as the "banker" of this "friendly" game seems to be a filthy goddamn cheater, and he's got a gun sitting on the table in front of him seemingly saying "just TRY and stop me, bitches!"

What's that got to do with the 5 levels and his constant focus on problems?

If life is a game, the only point to it is "how to make the game as enjoyable as possible for as many of the players as possible and everything and everyone is ostensibly a 'player'."

"The only point"???
Consider the Roy game:

Do you think "the only point" has to do with making large numbers of people experience the largest amount of enjoyment?

 

[excreationist]

It is a very long story about what has been happening lately...

Part of it is that my household's rent is going up from A$610 to A$700 in December. That's about A$470 each per fortnight. Apparently spending 30% of your income on rent is considered rental stress but I'd be paying 51%.... I had already been cutting lots of costs (like mainly living off of nuts [A$3 per 375g] - and the rent would go up even more the year after that. I had been thinking of suicide quite a few times but then my wife and brother in law would have even more trouble paying the rent. Note we all have mental illnesses and me and my wife get $920/fortnight. I have a casual cleaner job and earn A$100 every few weeks. I also have heaps of health/etc problems.

People suggested I just not worry but I said my worry was being constructive. I wanted to explore all of the options such as living in a caravan (which my wife doesn't want).

BTW a related thing is this web page I made:

Why is there Suffering? - Life's Player

About suffering in a simulation

lifesplayer.com

In scenarios like the Roy game and Alan Watts' dream thought experiment, the player chose to live a life involving suffering but forgot this during the game. They'd remember this choice when they woke up.

I was thinking to myself whether I would really have consented to endure this kind of discomfort. But within 24 hours I thought to myself that it isn't so bad. (Note in Mark Manson's video he said that some/all Jews who were in the concentration camps didn't wish that it didn't happen to them) There is hope though it seems like a fairly high chance that I might have to go into my wife's savings. Though the purpose of the savings was to put a deposit on a home. The only chance of us getting a home is to buy one in a retirement village - though we need to wait until we're 50. (I'm 45 at the moment) One day we would get an inheritance but that might be in 10-15 years or more.

My personality has changed in a huge way for the better in the past few days. It is a long story though.

The webpage this thread is talking about talks about choosing solutions over distractions. I was thinking to myself that maybe a lot of Buddhist monks' lives involves distractions rather than achieving as much as possible. I try to achieve useful things with what I'm doing now. Achieving things also includes helping other people.

I've been reflecting on recent events. I'm currently thinking it is better to do the right thing than do what seems best in terms of self-interest... I decided not to explain this due to the privacy of people I know. edit: sometimes some dishonesty can seem good - e.g. if Nazis were asking if you are hiding any Jews in your house it could be better to lie. And Rahab was rewarded when lying about people she was hiding - and she apparently was an ancestor of Jesus. Maybe dishonesty could be the "right thing".

 

[excreationist]

More about this:

If at any point, Life runs out of problems to give us, then as players, we will unconsciously invent problems for ourselves

This is from a webpage I made that is no longer publicly listed:

Happiness - Life's Player

Happiness, simulations, manic episodes, and more...

lifesplayer.com

Feeling "High" and Manic Episodes

This early Ken Keyes book helped teach me how to be happy 100% of the time - until the mania caused me to behave recklessly, leading me to become hospitalized in a mental ward. Based on the book, it seemed that my reduced need for sleep was normal:

"...When you uplevel all your addictions to preferences, you will discover that your body may not need as much sleep as you now require. Plus, you will have much more energy during your waking hours..."

Note lately I just get really tired when it is evening and go to sleep rather than what happens when I'm manic. Also if I have trouble getting to sleep I now take sleeping tablets which means it seems I will avoid manic episodes in the future.

Ken Keyes' Handbook to Higher Consciousness goes into his ideas in further depth, including:

"...As the watcher of the screen, you are perfect. The screen may be projecting a horrendous movie that is showing all kinds of pain and suffering - on the screen. Or the screen may reflect a happy movie that shows a beautiful sunset, a delightful sexual experience, or an enjoyable meal. But the essential you is the pure awareness that just watches the stuff go by on the screen of your life. Behind what you think you are - YOU ARE..."

So I've tried lots of different approaches to my life.

The following is related to it being a video game:

NDEs & the Afterlife - Life's Player

Near Death Experiences (NDEs), waking up, and hell

lifesplayer.com

It is possible you are a player that has an existence external to a simulation. In this case you aren't aware of your true identity, partly to make the simulation more immersive and realistic. When you die, some or all of your old memories might be restored.

e.g. playing the “Roy” game:

Or what if you had complete control over your experiences? Would you eventually choose to live a life like your present life? See Alan Watts' dream thought experiment.

1.2.3. - Mythology of Hinduism - Pt. 1

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time-sense and slip, say seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would, I suppose, start out by []

web.archive.org

And after you’ve done that for some time you’d think up a new wrinkle. To forget that you were dreaming so that you would think it was all for real. And to be anxious about it. Because it’d be so great when you wake up. And then you say well like children who dare each other on things, how far out could you get? Or could you take what dimension of being lost, of abandonment, of your power, what dimension of that could you stand you could ask yourself this because you know you would eventually wake up

That was the quote I was thinking about when I was thinking that it seems like the suffering and hardship was too much...

After I've been facing the severe rental crisis I have been thriving. Things I've been forced to do (for an OCD person) would normally get unbearably annoying but like Mark Manson says things can become an automatic habit. I don't worry so much about boundaries and the OCD person is now far more compassionate after I've been doing more for him (like shouting him dinners that are costing me A$4 total for the 3 of us, etc - instead of sharing the costs of eating out which ends up costing more). I was downloading 3 versions of Lady Chatterley's Lover which I got the idea from this video of mine:

Anyway when one video had downloaded I was feeling horny just from the thought (though I can't visualize anything) which is unusual for me. Later I felt horny for my wife which is unusual and I deleted all three of those movies. Then the sex went for ages and it went very well though as usual I didn't really feel an orgasm. BTW my wife is paying for a A$500 vasectomy as part of our upcoming 12 year wedding anniversary... I originally was wanting a A$500-600 TV since ours has a few intermittent issues but I'll just put up with that due to new priorities.

A key thing is that I'm trying to think out of the box and come up with new approaches to saving money, etc.

 

[excreationist]

This thread originally talks about "cheat codes" and when I did a creative writing course for people with mental illnesses I wrote:

Cheating in the Game of Life - A True Story written in 2008 - The Giraffe Boards

Cheating in the Game of Life - A True Story written in 2008 JohnClay

www.giraffeboards.com

Now I'm thinking about what is a good way of approaching life - rather than cheating... and in the past couple of days it's been a lot different to my usual approach... well actually I'm just putting it into action rather than thinking about the theory behind it.

BTW my wife can have severe anxiety where she can pace for several hours or multiple days when she was in hospital recently. She would get anxious about normal things and after that she'd think up silly reasons to be anxious like thinking she'd get put in jail for future improper dealings with a baby. A couple of days ago she rang up a hotline about the severe rent problems. On the phone she said that there are criminals living in caravans (I considered caravans) but the person on the phone said that that isn't the case anymore (also lots of ordinary people living in tents and cars, etc). Anyway she hasn't been pacing... but she gets sleepy (maybe a lot to do with the valium, etc). I tell her it is better to be sleepy than anxious. Maybe people under severe circumstances tend to not pace around as what they'd normally do - that is the case for my wife.

Recently my wife said that she was fighting the anxiety - normally she'd believe what her thoughts said like that she had to quit her volunteer job without waiting until she was in a better frame of mind.

 

[excreationist]

Lately I started doing Airtasker. I got a job counting people walking past a store for 3 hours for A$90 (A$70 after the fees). My wife and mother and law said they were proud of me. I thought my financial worries were over. Then I got 3 stars...
I wrote:

Ok thanks. BTW just wondering how I could have gotten a better review? Be more professional, not wanting toilet break?

They replied:

I think you did fine. The task was simple and you did exactly what was required. During review on my end airtasker suggests 3 star is about what you’d expect. 4 star is above expectation, 5 star is significantly above expectation. I think with a task this simple it’s hard to exceed expectations

I replied:

Ok thanks for the clarification. I was used to Fiverr where normally people get 5 stars all the time.

I later realised that a lot of the people wanting to do the tasks had perfect 5 star records.
Then I saw a job that was 1 suburb away about making a slideshow with music for their birthday party two days later. I was the only person who applied due to their location. I went over the top with my response and even made a sample slideshow on YouTube to show them how good I am....
Then a few hours later lots of other people offered their services. I later realised that they had changed the job from in person to remote. The YouTube video had made them realise that the job could be done remotely. I quoted that previous employer about why he gave me three stars. I offered to do it for A$175 rather than the A$200 he wanted. But he thought my record was too risky even with that reduced price. I said that I could do the job for him before giving me the offer but there was no way to get in contact with him (to get the photos, etc) - you can only get contact details after you are given the job. He tried putting the contact details in a message but those were removed and he got in trouble.

So it seemed like having only 1 job and 3 stars made me doomed in Airtasker. Then I thought of an idea that might be breaking the rules but I don't think I would have been caught.

I looked into mystery shopping but the example involved far too much memory - I would only be able to remember a small part of it.

Then I was looking into 20+ side hustles in Australia. I eventually realised that I could use Fiverr. I had a rating of 4.9 stars for 36 jobs as a buyer. Previously there weren't really any gigs I was happy to do. But then I thought about making slideshows for birthdays, etc.

So anyway this is basically some of the details of the things that have been happening lately related to the video game analogy article that this thread is about. Also it has been a recurring theme lately where I can feel proud of what I've done (or people say they're proud) then soon after my situation gets very bleak and it seems if things get better it seems like a bit of a miracle rather than something I could have consistently done myself. Also today my wife has said I seemed more mature. Before the events lately I've never really had any serious money problems.

It said:

You will face unexpected challenges and long periods of frustration. You will often struggle with self-doubt, feel overwhelmed by helplessness and loss

Previously my crises didn't involve money so much. When I got good at other challenges money became something I hadn't mastered yet. And like I've said I also was familiar with this related to manic episodes:

If at any point, Life runs out of problems to give us, then as players, we will unconsciously invent problems for ourselves

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is a very long story about what has been happening lately...

Part of it is that my household's rent is going up from A$610 to A$700 in December. That's about A$470 each per fortnight. Apparently spending 30% of your income on rent is considered rental stress but I'd be paying 51%.... I had already been cutting lots of costs (like mainly living off of nuts [A$3 per 375g]

If you're looking for cheap food a good thing to look at it beans + grain. This can provide complete protein with the right combinations. The cooking time is long but it can just sit in a slow cooker, it doesn't require much interaction.

 

[excreationist]

If you're looking for cheap food a good thing to look at it beans + grain. This can provide complete protein with the right combinations. The cooking time is long but it can just sit in a slow cooker, it doesn't require much interaction.

To maintain my weight at 70-71kg I normally need to eat about 13000kj/day (3000 calories). The mixed nuts I get (peanuts, almonds, cashews) work out to A$8/kg. The good thing about the nuts is if I'm getting tired and haven't had enough calories I can just have 100-200g of the nuts... if I had beans and grains it might be 700kj/100g so I'd have to eat about triple or more of the beans and grains when I'm getting tired. The nuts are 25% protein, 50% fats (only 6% saturated fat) and 11% carbs (the beans and grains would have a lot of carbs). I can have 300-400g of nuts a day then have various other things such as pineapple cores (I let my wife have the good parts of the pineapple).