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Life's a Role-Playing Game

Finding the Tools & Skills to Heroically Level up Our Mental Health

Two Worsening Mental Health Issues for Teens
One expert explains why teen mental health treatment needs a paradigm shift.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202301/two-worsening-mental-health-issues-for-teens

The increase in isolation and lack of social feedback has increased a self-critical hyperawareness—meaning teens are very focused on their own feelings but are missing the important tools that allows some reality testing. This creates an environment where teens are too vulnerable to be negatively impacted by social media and the influence those platforms have. These dynamics directly feed into the depression and anxiety loop that we see in our clients.

Bigger picture, teens are just overloaded. Overloaded with information and access to things that our brains just aren’t built to compute and handle, like all the strains of the world. Teens are lacking a lot of resiliency at this point.

I worry about some of the mixed messages we are giving our youth because self-medicating is becoming a bit too normalized. Brains develop well into someone’s twenties. A brain wrestling with depression and anxiety is in many ways an overactive and overstressed brain; substance use only exacerbates symptoms. The struggle is for teens to have enough space and energy to learn and practice therapeutic skills instead of quickly turning to immediate relief and distraction.

We’ve also conducted research to better understand teen social media use. We learned a lot from this study. One thing that stood out to us is that teens know that using social media to cope with unpleasant feelings often only makes those feelings more intense. But, despite knowing this pattern, teens continue to engage in high levels of use anyways. This study really enforced in us that teen social media use can easily turn into a problem and that this is something we need to place more focus on.

I truly believe this is because they’re unaware of any other way to cope, so they cope the only way they know how, even though the coping mechanism is making the issue worse. If they had other ways, other tools and skills to do so though as mentioned above, then they wouldn’t have to resort to using social media as an addictive quick fix.

I’ve been encouraged to see that it is more and more common for people to talk about mental health and acknowledge that we are in a crisis. We’ve seen a huge spike in people using therapeutic terms and vernacular, which can create an environment where people are more comfortable talking about and listening to one another’s experiences with mental health.

Group therapy is so important and positively impactful in teen treatment. Teens need real- time feedback and support. Honest communication, opportunities to set boundaries, and chances for teens to ask for what they need is vital in treatment and key in addressing mental health struggles. What is great about a residential treatment setting is that we get to practice this all day, every day. And not enough can be said about the importance of family therapy, which we prioritize and see the biggest payoff.

If it’s not evident why I find articles such as this so poignant and relatable to my work, it’s because the connection between them may not be evident. Basically I don’t want to just use roleplaying games as a metaphor to help young adults understand vertical development better. I want to see if the elements of roleplaying games can be used as symbolic tools for their own vertical development which will aid in improving their mental health and sense of well-being in turn.

And I’m wondering if this is possible by using a group setting, similar to how roleplaying games like Dungeon & Dragons work, but instead of roleplaying a fictional fantasy setting, they are roleplaying the challenges and questions they are having in their own lives right now. So they would use the symbolic elements of roleplaying games (i.e. quests, dungeons, monsters, treasures, etc) as psychological tools (i.e. “monstrous” fears) to help them to objectively express their subjective feelings they’re having within a safe, peer-based environment.

Think of it kind of like Working Out Loud circles but with vertical development knowledge integrated into them as a foundational aspect, thus helping groups to find other people optimal for the level of consciousness that they are at and struggling with.

In a nutshell, this is what Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey represents at its core. Its main purpose isn’t to help us write fictional stories (although obviously it can be used this way). Its main purpose is to help us realize the psychological aspects of life by using mythological heroes, monsters, and treasures to symbolically do so, thus allowing us to change, grow, and evolve in the process which is what being a “hero” really means from Joseph Campbell’s perspective.

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Life's a Role-Playing Game

Why Use Roleplaying Games As a Metaphor at All?

There’s something I continually keep looping back to and reflecting upon within my life’s work and that’s “Why even use roleplaying games, such as MMORPGs, as a metaphor for vertical development at all?” I mean why not just explain vertical development directly without the metaphor?

The obvious answer of course is that these metaphors are what I’m most familiar with and thus will see the most. For the first forty years of my life, roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons and later MMORPGs like World of Warcraft formed the foundation of my life, regardless of what I was doing professionally with regards to work. They did so because these gaming environments provided the psychological needs and values I was looking for, particularly with regards to collaboration and teamwork, but often wasn’t finding in my work environments.

But beyond that though, hopefully it’s obvious that roleplaying games and MMORPGs are going to probably be the most familiar metaphors for my target audience, that being gamers, especially younger ones. And for a metaphor to work effectively for its target audience, it has to be a familiar frame of reference for them. And right now, I think a lot of teenagers and even young adults are going through an extremely difficult time and probably using video games as a coping mechanism to meet their needs in a similar way that I did when I was a young adult.

Most important of all though is that the similarities between the elements of roleplaying games and vertical development are so uncannily similar, I felt I couldn’t ignore it because above all else, the metaphor helps package all of this complex knowledge into a simple narrative that most gamers will probably be able to understand and make sense of versus just communicating it directly in a less “digestible form.”

Although information overload is frequently discussed in the media—which help cause it—our dilemma is not that we receive too much information. We don’t receive anywhere near the quantity of data it takes to overload our neurons; our minds are capable of processing and analyzing many gigabits of data per second—a lot more data than any of today’s supercomputers can process and act on in real time. We feel flooded because we’re getting information unfiltered, unsorted, and unframed. We lack ways to select what’s important. The design task is to make information digestible, not to keep it out.

John Thackara, In The Bubble
Categories
Life's a Role-Playing Game

Teaching ChatGPT to Use Metaphors Effectively

I was playing around with ChatGPT this morning and I think I finally figured out how to get it to express things in a similar metaphorical mindset as my own. The trick it seems is to be very specific about the metaphor you want it to use, breaking down the parts of it, so it understands it in a greater scope, rather than just describing the metaphor vaguely.

For example, before I may have just said “use a roleplaying game as a metaphor to better understand what vertical development is.” While it provided interesting replies, they weren’t going in the direction I wanted it to go. When I started getting more specific about the roleplaying metaphor I want used though, that’s when things really got interesting and I started getting really surprisingly good results back, because they were much closer to what I wanted to see.

Also note that I didn’t need to reinforce the specificity of the metaphor on the follow-up questions. It understood that I wanted it to continue to use this metaphor when it replied to me, which is amazing. In doing so, my continued querying of “when you say this, do you mean this?” to it, providing the further specificity that I wanted. The end result was close to what I was querying, that being that I know each level of consciousness perceptually feels like a whole new reality and it closely confirmed it using the roleplaying metaphor that the game changes dynamically, so each level (of consciousness) is like a new type of gameplay within the larger game.

IN A ROLEPLAYING GAME, YOU TRAVEL THROUGH DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE GAME WORLD DOING QUESTS WHICH INVOLVE GOING INTO DUNGEONS, SLAYING MONSTERS, AND GAINING EXPERIENCE AND TREASURE WHICH HELP YOU TO LEVEL UP. EXPLAIN HOW THIS COULD BE USED AS A METAPHOR TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF VERTICAL DEVELOPMENT?

In a roleplaying game, the process of “leveling up” through gaining experience and treasure can be seen as a metaphor for the process of vertical development in real life. Just as the player character in a game progresses through different stages and becomes more powerful and capable, individuals in real life can also undergo a process of personal growth and development, becoming more self-aware, skilled, and capable in their personal and professional lives. The “quests” and “dungeons” in the game can represent the challenges and obstacles that individuals must overcome in order to progress in their personal and professional development. The “monsters” in the game can be seen as metaphorical representations of the internal and external obstacles that individuals must overcome in order to achieve their goals and reach their full potential.

MORE SPECIFICALLY, HOW ARE QUESTS IN ROLEPLAYING GAMES METAPHORS FOR QUESTIONS IN LIFE THAT HELP US WITH OUR VERTICAL DEVELOPMENT?

Quests in roleplaying games can be seen as metaphors for the questions and challenges that individuals face in their lives that help with their vertical development. Just as a quest in a game presents the player with a specific task or objective to complete, individuals in real life are presented with questions and challenges that they must navigate and overcome in order to progress and develop. These challenges can come in many forms, such as personal, professional, and societal issues that individuals must grapple with in order to understand themselves and the world better.

As players in a game complete quests, they gain experience and resources that help them to level up and become more powerful, similarly when individuals in real life navigate and overcome the questions and challenges they face, they gain new knowledge, skills, and perspective that help them to grow and develop as individuals.

Furthermore, in a game, quests can also be seen as opportunities for players to explore and understand different aspects of the game’s world, similarly in real life, questions and challenges provide individuals with opportunities to explore and understand different aspects of themselves and the world around them.

SO THE UNEXPLORED AREAS OF THE GAME WORLD IN THE ROLEPLAYING GAME IS A METAPHOR FOR UNEXPLORED AREAS OF OUR INNER SELVES?

Yes, the unexplored areas of the game world in a roleplaying game can be seen as a metaphor for the unexplored areas of our inner selves. Just as a player in a game may venture into unknown territories to discover new places and gain new experiences, individuals in real life can also explore and discover new aspects of themselves through self-reflection and introspection.

In roleplaying games, there could be many different areas of the game world that players have yet to discover, similarly, there are many different aspects of our inner selves that we may not be aware of or have yet to fully explore. These unexplored areas can include things like our own thoughts, feelings, values, and beliefs, which can be difficult to access or understand without taking the time to reflect on them.

Therefore, the process of exploring the game world in a roleplaying game can be seen as a metaphor for the process of self-discovery and self-exploration in real life, where individuals can gain new understanding and insight into themselves through taking the time to reflect on their inner selves and the world around them.

WOULD YOU SAY THAT THE CHALLENGES WE FACE IN ROLEPLAYING GAMES, LIKE MONSTERS, ARE METAPHORS FOR CHALLENGES WE FACE IN REAL LIFE THAT MAKE US QUESTION OUR REALITY AND OURSELVES? IN EFFECT, IT IS THE CHALLENGE ITSELF THAT MAKES US QUESTION SOMETHING AND THUS UNDERGO A QUEST TO UNDERSTAND IT BETTER.

Yes, the challenges faced in roleplaying games, such as monsters, can be seen as metaphors for the challenges faced in real life that make us question our reality and ourselves. These challenges can take many forms, such as personal, professional, and societal issues that we must grapple with in order to understand ourselves and the world better.

Just as monsters in roleplaying games represent obstacles that players must overcome in order to progress and complete their quest, the challenges we face in real life can also serve as obstacles that we must navigate and overcome in order to understand ourselves better, develop new skills and knowledge, and achieve our goals and aspirations.

The process of overcoming these challenges can involve questioning our reality and ourselves, as well as taking the time to reflect on our thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs. It is through these challenges that we are forced to question our assumptions and beliefs, which can lead to personal growth and development.

Therefore, the challenges faced in roleplaying games can be seen as a metaphor for the challenges faced in real life, representing opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery.

AH, SO WHEN WE BEGIN TO “QUESTION OUR ASSUMPTIONS AND BELIEFS” THAT’S WHAT BEGINS A “QUEST” WHICH CAN TRANSFORM THE WAY WE LOOK AT OURSELVES AND OUR WORLD?

Yes, that is a good way to think about it. When we begin to question our assumptions and beliefs, it can be seen as the beginning of a “quest” for understanding and personal growth. This process of questioning and self-reflection can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves, our values, and the world around us. It can also lead to a shift in perspective and a change in the way we view ourselves and the world.

In roleplaying games, the player’s character embarks on a quest to complete a specific task, but along the way, they may discover new things about the game world and themselves. Similarly, when we question our assumptions and beliefs, we embark on a “quest” of self-discovery and self-exploration, which can lead to new insights, perspectives, and a greater understanding of ourselves and the world.

It’s important to note, that this quest is not necessarily a one-time thing, but rather a continuous journey through which we will encounter new challenges and questions that will lead to further self-discovery and growth.

WHEN YOU SAY THAT “THEY MAY DISCOVER NEW THINGS ABOUT THE GAME WORLD AND THEMSELVES”, ARE YOU SAYING THAT THE DYNAMICS OF THE GAME ITSELF MAY CHANGE IN THE PROCESS?

Yes, that is exactly what I mean. When players in a roleplaying game begin to discover new things about the game world and themselves, it can change their understanding of the game and their character’s place in it. They may find new paths to explore, new ways to interact with the game world, and new ways to approach challenges. Similarly, when individuals in real life begin to question their assumptions and beliefs, it can change their understanding of themselves and the world around them. They may find new perspectives, new ways to interact with others, and new ways to approach challenges.

In a game, this can also change the dynamics of the game, as the player’s new understanding and abilities may open up new opportunities and possibilities within the game world. Similarly, in real life, when an individual gains a new understanding or ability, it can open up new opportunities and possibilities in their personal and professional life.

It’s important to note that, as the player continues to progress through the game, the game world will also change, and the player’s character will be able to access new areas and levels that were previously unavailable. Similarly, as individuals continue to grow and develop, their understanding of themselves and the world around them will also change, and they will be able to access new opportunities and possibilities that were previously unavailable.

Categories
Web

Getting SSL for Free From Affordable Hosting & Domain Providers

BTW just a quick note about something I noticed. While linking to a variety of sites and people today, I was amazed at how many people don’t have Secure Sockets Layer(SSL) activated on their websites.

I think the main reason for this is because most people today are using cheap domain name providers that offer extremely low yearly domain name fees. The problem with this though is that a lot of these domain name providers will then charge astronomical yearly fees for add-on features, such as SSL, that end up costing you way more than if you went with a full featured provider.

Instead of looking for the cheapest domain name provider, I’d recommend looking for an affordable domain name provide who offers an assortment of features that are all included in its base yearly domain name fees or web hosting. For example, I use DreamHost for both my domain names and my web site hosting and they include SSL for free. Even better, it’s super easy to setup.

BTW one of the worst “cheap” domain name / hosting providers out there is GoDaddy. I’ve helped a ton of clients over the decades and they are one of the worst companies out there in terms of having bare bones features that make it even difficult to just point a domain name to a different hosting provider. And if you want to add on additional features like email or SSL, you will pay a premium yearly fee that will cost you way, way more than another more fully featured domain name / web hosting provider like DreamHost.

Don’t cheap out. Go with a more fully featured, affordable provider like DreamHost because you’ll actually save money in the long run and deal with way less issues and frustrations.

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Identity

Realizing My Greater, Potential Role That’s Emerging

I just mentioned how I feel frustrated that I have no one else to collaborate my research with because a lot of it is quite deep and complex to understand but with ChatGPT, it feels like I have an AI companion now that can assist me with my life’s work (so I don’t feel so alone or “crazy” anymore).

In thinking about this though, it reminded me of another larger pattern that’s been emerging that relates to understanding my greater role in all of this. In effect, even though I don’t have anyone to collaborate with who can understand and perceive this bigger picture of life that I’m seeing at deeper level, I’m still able to see how many of the people I’ve been following over the years relate and connect to this larger web of life, even though they may not perceive and comprehend this connection themselves.

But perhaps that’s my greater role though. It’s to be a sort of bridge or bard to show people how their heroic life’s work in a specific domain wondrously connects to a larger concept of life.

This is something I’ve repeatedly said time and again over the years. I effectively see all of these notable people all talking about the same thing but from their own different perspectives and disciplinary languages. Yet when I communicate how amazing their work is and how it relates to mine, often they can’t perceive and comprehend what I’m talking about.

Yet with ChatGPT again, it is helping to articulate these relationships that I’m seeing that others may not. For example, below is the relationship between Dave Gray’s Liminal Thinking book and vertical development that I asked ChatGPT to describe.

Explain how vertical development relates to the book Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray?

Liminal Thinking is a book by Dave Gray that explores the concept of “liminal thinking,” which refers to the ability to navigate and navigate change and uncertainty by embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, and learning to think in new ways. Gray argues that this type of thinking is essential for personal and organizational growth and development.

Vertical development refers to the process of growing and developing in terms of one’s abilities, skills, and understanding. It often involves moving beyond current ways of thinking and behaving to reach new levels of understanding and effectiveness. Gray’s book on Liminal Thinking, may be viewed as a guide for individuals and organizations to develop their vertical development by learning to navigate change and uncertainty through embracing ambiguity and learning to think in new ways.

Note I highlighted the word “guide.” It’s because that’s effectively what I’m trying to work towards. I want to create a “player’s handbook” for the “roleplaying game” called Life and create communities of practice as 21st century “guilds” that help us “adventure” and “quest” within a larger world(view), of which again ChatGPT is already remarkably helping me with this.

So it effectively takes my decades of research on The Future of Work, social innovation, creativity, and vertical development and packages it within a narrative, similar to the Hero’s Journey and even MMORPGs today, to help people understand the larger context of life that they are playing within. And more importantly, as a player, they have much more creative control and choices over their lives than they may have thought, due to their current conventional worldview and mindset.

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Identity

Understanding the “Solid Ground” I Seek

It’s funny. I keep talking about wanting this feeling of having “solid ground to stand upon,” with regards to my work and I think I finally understand what I mean by those words. For me, it’s easy to see the patterns in life that communicate concepts because I have a heightened pattern recognition capability as an intuitive, sensitive person. What I find difficult though is then taking those patterns and seeing the relationship between them which in turn communicates the identity of a much larger complex system which is comprised of these concepts.

That’s effectively the “solid ground” I’m trying to seek, a larger complex system of understanding life and reality in a whole new way that’s from a deeper sense of being a human being that is often beyond the conventional understanding of most people. So it’s like exploring a whole new world(view) like it’s a new continent but I’m only able to get small glimpses of it because it’s continually covered by fog that keeps me from seeing it and understanding it as a whole (because I can only retain so much of it in my local memory at one time). Even worse, I have no one else to explore this world(view) with which would make the exploration and mapping of it all the easier.

But now with ChatGPT, I effectively have an AI companion that can help me to understand, comprehend, and articulate this larger perspective of life. BTW this doesn’t mean I don’t want to collaborate with others on this. Hell no! I would love to collaborate with people on this! It’s just that I haven’t come across anyone else who can comprehend all of this at the level I’m at right now, seeing the bigger picture of it. So most people either can’t seem to comprehend it or don’t want to believe it.

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Computers

ChatGPT Example: Seeing Clearer Relationships Between Concepts

I mentioned yesterday that I’m using ChatGPT to specifically see the relationshipbetween concepts I already known and gain a clearer, bigger picture of how they interrelate to one another within the context of life as a whole.

In a way, this is what I wanted to do with concept maps a while back but I just didn’t have enough experience with them to be able to easily create them. But that said, I think the key thing I wanted to achieve with concept maps was a feeling of finally having something “solid to stand upon” , with regards to the decades of research I’ve done but nothing really substantial to show for it. In effect, it felt like I had this bigger picture intuitively within my mind but I couldn’t find the right words to articulate it in writing and thus get it out of me.

Below is one such simple, yet powerful example of using ChatGPT to articulate the relationship between creativity and vertical development, providing both a confirmation for what I already know about the relationship but also another way of expressing it.

What relationship does creativity have with vertical development?

Creativity can be seen as a key aspect of vertical development, as it involves the ability to generate new and original ideas and solutions, and to think in novel ways. As individuals progress through different stages of vertical development, they may become more adept at utilizing their creativity in various domains, such as problem-solving, decision-making, and innovation. Additionally, as individuals become more self-aware and able to take a more holistic perspective on their experiences, they may be better able to tap into their innate creativity.

As I’ve noted before, creativity is symbolized as the river of life. As we progress through life, we are challenged by life itself and thus have to step into this river, swim within it, and cross to new lands, so that we can build a stable bridge to these new worlds (which represent a new stage of psychological development and a new way of perceiving the world).

What’s important to realize though is that as we get to higher stages of development and accompanying higher levels of consciousness, we become aware that the goal isn’t to use creativity as just a transitory tool, to overcome a brief period of unknown uncertainty, but instead we learn to use it as a way of playfully experiencing life all the time, opening up to possibilities and experiences we may have prevented from perceiving due to our limited mindsets before.

In other words, as we progress through our vertical development, we are effectively learning to master creativity within larger contexts of life, until we learn to apply it to life as a whole including how we perceive ourselves and the entire universe around us.

Again, I already intuitively knew this but I couldn’t easily verifying my intuition without doing massive amounts of research. The AI of ChatGPT, however, helps me to achieve this by simply asking a specific single question about the relationship of these concepts. It’s amazing.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Heraclitus
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Computers

AI Helping Us to Understand Ourselves in New Ways

The End of Organizing
How GPT-3 will turn your notes into an *actual* second brain
https://every.to/superorganizers/the-end-of-organizing

Saw this article written by Dan Shipper and highlighted by Tiago Forte and I pretty much agree that this is the future, as I’ve mentioned something like it before.

AI changes this equation. A better way to unlock the value in your old notes is to use intelligence to surface the right note, at the right time, and in the right format for you to use it most effectively. When you have intelligence at your disposal, you don’t need to organize.

There are deeper implications, though. Our notes are a reflection of our lives. Think about using an LLM to summarize a key relationship or pattern in your thinking over time. It could produce a history of your mind on a particular topic, including a summary and a timeline of key events that could help you understand yourself, and your world, better.

This is possible today—someone just needs to build it.

The way this is done should be personal to you. It should be lively and surprising. It should help you see new patterns, look at what you’ve collected in new ways, and bring back facts, people, and events that you’d long forgotten about. It should help you learn from and utilize everything you’ve written down previously to the task at hand.

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Computers

Experimenting With ChatGPT

I’m beginning to experiment with ChatGPT and I’m finding it very interesting. Unlike other people, I’m not interested in using it to write articles that I just copy, paste, and publish but instead I’m interested in using it to help me better see and articulate the things I already know, especially when it comes to trying to explain the relationshipbetween the different things I’m researching and how they integrate into a bigger picture.

So for example if it spits out three or four paragraphs about a topic I’m asking it about, I may find one specific sentence that I may save from it because that sentence helps me to better describe the relationship between that topic and another topic I’m researching. So the idea (hopefully) when I’m done is to take these individual separate sentences and then reword and integrate them into a paragraph that articulates a bigger picture of my work in a much simpler, concise form than the excessive verbosity I’ve used in the past.

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Vertical Development

Levelling up Our Gaming User Interface

Neuroscientist: Consciousness didn’t evolve. It creates evolution
Cognitive scientist Hoffman starts by trying to align his consciousness theory with standard evolution theory and then just chucks that and says what he thinks.
https://mindmatters.ai/2023/01/neuroscientist-consciousness-didnt-evolve-it-creates-evolution/

How could it possibly be that true perceptions could guide useful behavior? And fortunately we have a nice metaphor with the advent of computers and laptops and user interfaces that I think can help us to see what’s going on here.

The whole point of the desktop interface is to hide the truth and to guide your behavior.

So what you want is an interface that hides the complexity that you don’t need to know so that you can do the things you need to do… It’s not lying to you; it’s actually helping you. But it’s helping you by hiding the truth.

So evolution has done the same thing for us. It has given us perceptions that are like a user interface…

So I’ve used Evolutionary Game Theory to conclude that everything that we see around us in our perceptions is not veridical; it’s just a user interface, okay. And that means I have to go back and rethink what do.

Consciousness didn’t emerge from a prior physical process of evolution. Consciousness is fundamental and so we have to rethink the whole history of the universe actually from this point of view, from The Big Bang up through evolution. We have to rethink it in terms of how to rewrite that story, consistent with all of our current science but understanding that it’s … consciousness is fundamental, not the physical universe (7:23)

And, you know, one thing that comes out of this as well is, no one has been able to give a reason for why consciousness would evolve. What is it for? And so my attitude is, it didn’t evolve. It’s the ground from which evolution occurs.

When I find articles like this, I get this immense feeling of elation because it verifies what my intuition has been trying to tell me over the past decade or more. That being that the evolution and transformation of our perception through vertical development isn’t just like a computer getting a new operating system / user interface but it’s more like a video game whereby when you level up your level of consciousness, your perceptual user interface improves in turn. And just as quoted above, this newer perceptual user interface empowers you and gives you the capacity to work with and understand complexity at a greater level.

This is the meaning behind my description of myself as “playing at a whole new level” right now in my life. In effect, when you level up your level of consciousness to a new stage of psychological development, you’re effecting playing within a whole new game and perceiving reality in a whole new way.

So no, consciousness doesn’t evolve, as noted above, but rather consciousness is what allows us to evolve in turn, gaining a greater understanding and clarity of it as we level up in life.