The Magical Rule #6: Don’t Take Yourself So Seriously
Why playing arcade games is sometimes the best medicine.
“Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk.
The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peter,” he says, “Kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws.
The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again 20 minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying.
Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and a n apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?” “Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule Number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so god damn seriously.’” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?”
“There aren’t any.”
~ from The Sixth Practice in The Art of Possibility
Summary
- In a video game (or any game) we constantly have a new character, new ego to play, so we forget ourselves and time vanishes.
- When we take ourselves too seriously there is never enough time — because our ego is unlimited!
- The practice is finding a balance.
- Simply, as adults, don’t forget how to be a kid. If you have forgotten, don’t forget to practice everyday. Kids do.
- That is why we should remember Rule #6 — Don’t take yourself so seriously.
- Then we can have all the time in the world to enjoy life.
Arcade games makes time vanish
I spent the evening playing 3 hours of arcade games, darts, shooting monsters, whack-a-mole, table hockey, drinking way too much sugar-cane soda and hitting punching targets, shooting hoops and ping pong. It was 10:30pm so quickly.
Where did the time go?
How come as adults time doesn’t vanish like it used to when we were kids?
I remember playing in my backyard with my brother kicking a soccer ball back and forth trying to knock the wooden fence pails out until Mum would yell dinner.
It always felt like we had only just started.
Time wasn’t important.
Isn't that a funny sentence?
As an adult — time is everything! We turn time into things:
Time is money, time is valuable, time is about getting ahead, time is following side hustles and passions and research and investments and catching up.
Then we label different times:
Downtime, quality time, focused-work time, special cuddles time, drinks with the boys time, workout time, family time, chill-out time.
Do they make a special clock to keep track of all these different times?
No ego, no time.
We constantly fight time but time never fights us.
So how can we change our view of time? No ego, no time.
There are two main kinds of time.
Biology time — which comes from inside of us — growing hair and nails, digestion, menstrual cycle, testosterone cycle, ageing bones and organs.
This is driven by a complex relationship and chemical balance in our bodies.
Space changing time — refers to how we perceive the changes of objects outside of our body we might call surroundings.
How can we to understand this better?
The earth moves around the sun, one day. If I had a board meeting the next day it would be the slowest day of all time. But being in the Phillipines on an island hopping snorkelling tour I couldn't care less!
Oh its 3pm in Taiwan, that’s 8:30am in London so markets have opened got to look at the charts… unless I’m at a pristine waterfall with my friends then I couldn't care less.
Too much ego, too much care, not enough time
How can we reduce care about time and improve care about quality of what we ‘use’ our time for?
Can we ever really waste time?
When comparing is there, then yes.
Diamond Sutra and Time: Time is an illusion
In the Diamond Sutra, Buddha said that our own illusion of time prevents us from being joyful and free.
In the Diamond Sutra they write:
“I is an Illusion
Human is an illusion.
Life-form is an illusion
Lifetime is an illusion.”
If my I / ego keeps changing it is not real, set in concrete.
And if we join many fake egos together to form a group of fake egos we call human — that remains also fake. But this is not special to humans, any lifeform is the same , a collection of temporary egos, so even a life form is an illusion. And if the life form is an illusion, then their temporary fake view of their life is also an illusion.
How to use this?
I’m not going to suggest I can summarise the Diamond Sutra so easily — but there is a practical guide to it which links to our subject.
When we take OUR I as so important, the illusion appears very real. But that does not make it real. This is why we must receive the suffering — like trying to fall in love with our shadow.
When we forget our egos time seem to vanish, because it was never real to begin with. And the true heart inside of us can open back up again to its natural state — joyful and free.
And that is the magic.
Here are some further philosophy classes on the Diamond Sutra from my Sifu for you to enjoy:
