An Easy Life Would Bore You To Death

Today’s article is going to be different. A little philosophical. I want you to use your imagination, that thing we used before smart smart phones. 

Imagine that you wake up one day with a super power.

You don’t have the ability to materialize wishes… not exactly, but you can manifest any goal through the application of your powers. Just the bare minimum of effort will bring you to the limit of your potential. 

Basically, you’d be like that girl Rey in the new Star Wars movies. You’ve never seen a lightsaber, but with a tiny amount of practice, you master it, even defeating Sith Lords who studied directly under Luke Skywalker. You’ve never flown a spaceship, but you miraculously find the Millennium Falcon in your backyard and immediately fly it expertly, outclassing dozens of professionals space pilots. 

How awesome would that be? 

Let’s bring this idea back to Earth. 

Imagine you join your college basketball team, and wish: “I want to be the best player on the team,” and Shabazoom! You’re driving slam dunks and being scouted for the NBA. 

Then you decide you want to be a famous author in the self-help genre. So you sit down at your desk, and start typing. No such thing as writer’s block. Three days later you admire your brilliant manuscript, send off a few emails, find an agent, and it’s published. It then goes on to sell a million copies in a year, and you have your very own cult. 

You want to get laid. So you walk down the street and seduce any lovely creature you desire. Like a Vampire, you don’t even have to try. You just hop on Tinder, send a few messages an in an hour you have a willing and eager beauty delivered to your door like pizza.  

Want to be an astronaut? Fly through the courses at school, send in a resume and Shabazoom! You’re in Space Force, off to Mars. A movie star? Go to an audition and now you’re starring in the next Back to The Future reboot. 

Wouldn’t it be fantastic? 

At first you’d probably explore all of the Earthly pleasures: amazing sex, delicious food, exotic beaches, the sweetest smelling flowers, the greatest music. 

But eventually, even the most wonderful pleasure becomes repetitive… boring. Especially when you haven’t earned it. 

So you’d move onto more risky, dangerous activities… skydiving, rock climbing, horse riding, deep sea diving, war tourism. For awhile, this would give you a thrill. And after you’d competed against, and bested all of your enemies easily in combat, then what? If you could never be defeated, then why even fight? 

No matter what you do, you’ll never fail. Your life is just a game, and you have the cheat code. You always win. It all comes easy. 

I predict you’d become apathetic. You’d just stop caring, about everything. You’d turn away from self-development, and to self-destruction. 

Having fully explored the world of external stimulus, the only place you’d have left to conquer would be yourself. 

So you’d read the greatest books, speedily devouring entire libraries. You’d master mathematics, arts, science, history, geography, engineering…. and when you’d accumulated enough knowledge and wisdom to best the greatest of philosophers, you’d have nowhere left to go… but deeper, inward, to the spiritual realm. 

You’d meditate, and reflect on the nature of reality; exploring the depths of your consciousness. You’d re-program your mind, changing your personality, to be more creative, passionate, driven, focused, empathetic, funny, brave. You’d erase any weaknesses or perceived defaults. 

And once you’d figured that out, with great ease… you’d long for the only thing left to master… 

I predict you would long for death.

 The endless cycle, the repetition, the lack of challenge, would drive you to existential despair. You’d wish for it, just to experience something beyond your ability to control.

To escape the prison of unlimited potential. The boredom of a game you can never lose. The only step out of your control, the only unknown, would be to die. And you’d be happy, and excited to go.

By this point you’d be so incredibly famous, your suicide would be the greatest spectacle the world has ever seen. It would be broadcasted to every smart phone on the planet, and be the most viewed suicide in history. 

And you would jump, and it would be the most spectacular “splat” in the history of splats. Then finally, you’d be gone. 

After your ego had disintegrated, and you become part of the Universal, cosmic soup, one with everything that ever was, and ever will be, with access to all knowledge, and unlimited creative power… 

You would finally be a God.

If you had any ego left, you might just feel a little bit ripped off. A little bit conned. And you might wish to could go back, and try it all again…

But not have it be so damn easy.