Games and Toys

Wittgenstein was more of a genious than I realised. His idea of language games is really fruitful indeed. Its been explored a lot in this blog, the idea that most of what we do is part of miriad games. Games being systems of rules like football which organise how we approach things and each other and provide meaning. Games par excellence however include things like business, economics and politics which provide all the elements of simple success/failure scoring and mediate the complex interaction of players.

Realised also the importants of Toys. One of the characteristics of consumerism is the attitude brought to things of "toys". I realised this weekend looking at the middle classes on holiday in the New Forest the diversity of toys. Cars of every description, clothing of likewise, bikes, caravans, car attachments, trailers etc So many things which are actually irrelevant to visiting the New Forest. They are simply toys - a child wanting the new action man or computer game is no different from someone getting a new car.

It is becoming very apparent the depth of the games and toys that surround us and which essentially dissipate our energies in nothing productive. A business who builds a huge business empire has done well within the game, but like the player of monopoly when the game ends where is he? What will he do with the pile of paper that no longer has any use? What is the big end to our games? That is death. When death comes all the game playing stops and we are left with Reality and whatever we have done in Reality. Whatever we have done in the games is immediately NULL and void.

Am realising this regarding housing. Exploring still the use of a garage as a home but more now the use of camping/sleeping rough. It is actually no different from the garage which is actually no different from being in a flat. When we are asleep we do not know where we sleep, anymore than when we are at work we are sitting at "home". To say we "live" in a house is a rather odd thing to say when we are at work! We "live" wherever we happen to be. What it has come to mean has become confused with the game of property. I "live" in a house is very close to I rent/own a house. And this means that the law will respect certain actions by me in that space in favour of other people. But the "law" is another game which is also highly linked with the social structure. If a high ranking person wants our house then there are ways that they can get it. The idea of a "social contract" I realised recently is ideal but bourgeoise - most of the people supposedly having made this contract wouldn't understand it anyway. It is bourgeoise legalistic language for a social structure that is imposed and nurtured through violence, exlusion and games. That no-one is above the law is a nice idea, but when a group of people have a joint interest that is "sufficiantly" big then that becomes the law. While no-one is technically above the law, people with the support of the "sufficiently large" group can act beyond the law. The Iraq war being an excellent example. The misuse of tax payers funds in the banking crisis another. The law exists only to determine when people act within and without the law - it is not binding or potent in any way.

Given all that it is mazing how people will spend a good deal of their lives attending to this game of "house". Everything from paying mortgages to refurbishment and chosing wall paper colours etc. Yet like all games, step outside the context and it is NULL.

This may sound negative - it is not in anyway a criticism but a clarification of the boundaries of LIFE. The big question is how we approach this all important issue of the NULL, and what is beyond. Atheism to end is the most naive approach as NULL is the real issue behind theism as anyone who has ever seriously questioned what G-d is will have discovered again and again!