Schenley High School (Pittsburgh, PA) | the games we play

it's funny, almost, the way we spin about our little circles
ever confident in what we know and perceive.
in order to justify our toils and pains
we create systems:
do this because it is right,
don't do this because it isn't.
the older we get, the more elaborate the systems become,
and the more trapped within them we are.
by defining what a victory or a loss is,
we shackle ourselves to the routines we believe will
produce these outcomes we have taught ourselves to desire.
take the arbitrary collection of rules within a sport:
you may stand here, but not there.
shoot the ball from this line towards this objective, not that one.
this person is your teammate, that one your enemy -
and this is how you must play to succeed.
once the game is no longer being played, when
the players, whom have all agreed to the same set notions,
no longer unify the place and the objects within it
by their mutual agreement on said arbitrary values -
the entire illusion falls apart...
but this applies to everything.
your home is only your home because you live there,
and all the things around you only hold the value you believe they have
as long as you continue to give them that value.

when you read about dream interpretation, you will find
that the advice most often given
is to examine what things within the vision symbolize,
what they represent, and that in the end they are all a part of you.
every character, every item within the dream is a reflection of you in some way.
everything is defined by its relationship to you, and
by studying what those relationship are, you will find out who you are as well.
there is no reason this can't be applied to the waking world,
and when it is, all the veils begin to drop away.
it can be terrifying, but also liberating.
in the end we must all transcend the games we play.
whether we like it or not, we have no choice.
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Schenley High School, Pittsburgh PA. 2010

Schenley High School is a chapter in my book, Abandoned America: Dismantling the Dream.
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