I realize that understanding my “Life as a MMORPG” metaphor is probably hard for people to grasp, even those who play MMORPGs. Fundamental to this metaphor is realizing that who you think you are, your identity, is really equivalent to your ego being the “character” you’re playing and who you truly are is a soul of potentiality as the “player.” You’ve just forgotten you’re a soul because you’ve been unconsciously immersed within the game for so long as your character.
But I thought what if we reversed this metaphor to make it more evident? So imagine if you sat down and started playing a new computer MMORPG, like World of Warcraft, but one in which your character you’re supposed to be controlling, had AI capabilities to think on its own, and actually started acting like your ego in real life?
And for you to be able to direct your character where you want it to go and do the things you want it to do, you had to convince it of doing these things first? What would this look like?
Posing this question to Claude.ai, this is what it revealed and roleplayed for me.
The Walled City: Levels 1-3
Level 1: The Slums (Survival)
Player: clicks to move character towards a food vendor
Character: Wait! What if we don’t have enough gold for food? We might starve! There’s not enough resources for everyone in these slums. Maybe we should hoard what little we have instead of risking it.
Player: It’s okay, we have plenty of gold. Let’s buy some food.
Character: But what if bandits attack us on the way back to our shelter? We’re so vulnerable out here!
Level 2: The Marketplace (Relationship)
Player: attempts to join a guild
Character: Do we really want to join a guild? What if they reject our application? Or worse, what if they accept us but then kick us out later? I don’t think I could handle that kind of abandonment.
Player: Joining a guild will help us tackle tougher quests and earn better rewards.
Character: But what if the other guild members don’t like us? I’m not sure I’m appreciated enough to be part of a team.
Level 3: The Noble Quarter (Self-Esteem)
Player: approaches a quest giver for a challenging mission
Character: Hold on! This quest looks really difficult. What if we fail? Everyone will see how incompetent we are. Maybe we should stick to easier quests where we can’t embarrass ourselves.
Player: But completing tougher quests is how we level up and get better gear.
Character: I know, but… I’m just not sure I’m good enough for this. What if we let the quest giver down? The whole Noble Quarter will be talking about our failure!
Conversations with Claude.ai
Do you see how hilariously this interaction reflects how we go about our real lives and how we spend so much time fighting with ourselves to the point of exhaustion? And how so much of our growth and potential is actually limited by our “self” (character) which is often standing in the way of our “Self” (player), whereby the capitalization represents our larger potential.
This is why Alfonso Montuori said that so much of creativity is really just learning to get out of the way of ourselves.
This is because our limiting beliefs often have fears associated with them which block us. This psychologically embodies the monsters within the Hero’s Journey which are really just our fears created from our outdated beliefs.
So how do we overcome this and make it so your character (ego) wants to go in the same direction as you the player (soul)?
That’s what levelling up in the game is all about, whereby one brings one’s character (ego) in alignment with one’s self as a player (soul), so that both of “you” are travelling side by side and adventuring in the same direction.
To do this requires trust. And to build that trust requires getting to know one another at a deeper level and going through challenging experiences that bring each other closer together within an intrapersonal relationship.
This is effectively the Hero’s Journey. It’s actually an inner journey fictionally relayed as an external one which relays truths about life. And the more one discovers who they truly are, deep down inside within the dungeons of themselves, the more one actually expands one’s worldview and one’s sense of Self, thus allowing oneself to play much larger roles in life than one previously imagined and believed.
When one achieves this state, one is no longer unconsciously immersed with the game of life but consciously instead.