A time of transition seems to call forth a word of summarization. A woman dies; a man retires; an actor takes on a new and unexpected role; a politician seeks a new office; an artist begins a new period. We say a word about what has gone before. A good word.
Who could speak a eulogy for you? Who knows all about you? Any person who knows me knows something about me, could share something, has missed something, could learn something more. I look at people around me and I see ignorance mixed with insight for everyone. In actual reality no one knows another fully. Not the spouse of 60 years, not the friend since school days, not the parent of the child nor the reader of the author nor the sketcher of the model. No one can write my poems for me.
So the game. To comprehend as much of actual reality as we can we have to play the actual reality game with each other. To know my insights you must listen to my observations. To grasp the poetry in my life you would have to recite my verses. Looking at the world through my pictures will allow you to know the windows in my house. But you will only hear the verses I share with you; you will only see through the windows I open. This is a multiplayer game.
The actual reality game requires 2 players even when there is only 1. If I am not telling the story of my life even I do not know it, no matter how many decades I have lived with myself. If I do tell myself my story, I live into it. I tell and retell it and explain where I have been and foretell where I will be and in doing that I define where I have lived and shape where I can go. These are truths about me which even I do not know unless I play the game.
A pair of players makes for a better game. That friend of 40 years will hold up a picture of life in the past and ask, "Isn't this an illustration of who you have been? Is it a foretaste of who you might be next year?" I may respond by saying, "Yes, I had forgotten that but it is still a part of who I am." Or I may say, "No, what I said and did living in the time was mostly about that time and very little about who I am today." In either case both players gain some insight.
There may be 3 players, or 5, or even 15. If I am famous enough you may share a tale about me with someone else: Remember, you may say, how he used to do this, or say this? Or you may say, Look again at his Christmas star or his Thursday story circle and tell me again what you see through that window. Even if I am not there the 2 players learn something about me and also about each other. Actual reality is nothing if not interconnected and we are each played and player, object and observation, self and other as we play the game.
In the actual reality game no one can write my poems for me but you can write your own poem about me. You can paint your own picture which has a shadow of me in it. You can make your own plays in the game built on the results of past plays I have made.