The Treasure

 

“Voltage is fundamental to a computer, but has nothing to do with computation.” (loosely paraphrases something I heard Anil Seth say)  

I know what he was saying here, but without that fundamental principle of voltage, the computer could not function; no matter how cleverly the parts were designed.

Does this mean that there is any computational value in the energy? Well, I think so. If the computer were a simple, binary instrument, the parts would be designed to have a yes or a no value. It would be ones and zeros; the gates of which would depend on energy.

In the same way, we depend on Life for our dynamic experience. There is a force behind my good and that force empowers my evil. That force is Life. If a very bad person does very bad things, then there is a very good energy source allowing the bad person to do badly.

We are all free-will-agents of this energy. The energy itself is neither good nor bad until it runs through a processor to be revealed as evil or bad.

You have an entertainment television in your home. If you allow your children to watch the television, you want the content to be good content. As a free-agent of that set, you can decide on the content expressed. If the images are terribly violent and/or graphic, you will likely adjust the process until the images are of a more pleasant nature. The bad images are still available to the set, but your choices are creating a better environment.

Why would the content providers even offer bad content? There has to be bad content as distinguished from good. What you allow into your home is your choice.

The only way you know the sky is blue is by comparing blue to other colors. If blue were the only color, you would not see blue nor color. Your conversations about the sky would be about where it is located and how much light it sheds or mirrors, but against the blue clouds, and in contrast to the blue trees, and covering the vast, blue world, the word ‘blue’ would be useless.

The Fundamental Energy of The Universe, therefore, must provide energy to the good and the bad. The Energy Itself is neither good nor bad, but in a superposition until observed – and therefore fixed – as one or the other.

You would not expect a responsible parent to allow all possible streams of videos into their homes. An impressionable child, watching violence, could be adversely affected. However, good and bad will always be choices. We are even free enough to have different opinions about what is good or bad.

We are, therefore, agents of God; free to use the Life-Force within to experience and/or create good or bad content.

To say that it is 5 o’clock somewhere is to excuse drinking at 10 AM. It is a choice made and even justified by the fact that the choice is obviously available. To say that the devil made you do it is to excuse your behavior based on the fact that the wrong choice was available to you. Life does allow the wrong choices; all of which ultimately lead to dead-ends, where joy cannot be found. If we continue to make the easier, wrong choices, we will continue to come to dead-ends, devoid of happiness.

Life is a game. You are given paths to consider on every level of the game. The object of the game is to reach joy at the end of each challenge; doing so will advance you to the next level each time.

I will leave it at that because it cannot be any simpler. If someone were to read this and imagine I have taken in the Ayn Rand concept, that person would be somewhat wrong. The least selfish thing one can ever do is to discover paths of joy, so that the bane brought back to the community by the hero is exactly the joy found on the hero’s journey.

 

I am only saying that you cannot share what you do not possess. And I am only saying that you cannot possess joy if you choose paths devoid of it. The object of The Game of Life is to gather joy at all times and to bring that joy – your joy – back to the community.

I should not really even suggest that Ayn Rand was not right. Altruism at the expense of joy is a worthless endeavor. Giving until it hurts only yields pain. Whoever the life of the party is, there is a pattern worthy of consideration. This individual is bringing something of true value to a situation; he or she had to have tapped into a supply of it somewhere.

Of course there are plenty of examples of people who bring joy to the party and completely exhaust their cache. If you find yourself giving away all of the joy you’ve discovered, you will have done all the good you can do for the community until you replenish. You can give your joy away until you run out of it.

 

The Game requires constant toggling by the player: You. There is never that-one-last-fork-in-the-road. The choices are coming as fast as you can make them. We make some really good choices without giving much thought to them. If your nose itches, you might brush the itch away with a quick pass of your hand, but you probably didn’t spend any time deciding on that action. However, from something as simple as that example, to something as complicated as accepting a wedding proposal, the choice should be based on whether or not an action would yield more joy for You. If - in the case of a proposal - you based your answer on what the other person desires, you could make a very bad choice. And this is how The Game can be won. Seek joy. If you find joy, you’ll have something to bring back; but when you get back, don’t give away all you have. Consider Joy a treasure and think of the next level of The Game.

There are many different kinds of cross-country challenges where the participants lay up supplies for themselves along the route. If those participants gave their store away at the first stop, they would not even have the energy to get to the next stop. A part of the treasure you are presently gathering should be laid up for yourself, along the way. Think of Joy as the most essential treasure in Life. Yes, give your joy to others, but also remember to leave some joy for yourself along the way.

If you wanted to bring joy to the community, you would want to be the person at the back of the truck, giving out reasonable amounts. Sadly, if you drive your truck of joy into any joy-starved community, and leave the door open, that community will take the last morsel of joy out of the back of that unattended truck.

Of course you will want to give your joy-reserves, but keep some joy too. And here is why:

When you get to that next community, where there are others who also need joy, you will have some left. You’ll open that back door, climb in and the first person you’ll see, standing there with his or her hand out, is yourself; so grateful you remembered.

 

“But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6: 20-21 KJV