This isn’t a poem.
I really do.
Yep - miss those stories and poems.
I think that he’s still around, just not posting…
I miss him here, in Creative Writing. I very much enjoyed reading him.
As for the balance of ILP…
Gamer was smart. Very smart. And creative.
His problem, in my most humble of opinions, is that he just tried so damn hard to be so damn clever all the time. He was obsessed with it.
He was a guy I think I would very much have liked to know better, but with him I don’t think that’s really possible. There was a veneer there, a look always on his face like he was up to something and wouldn’t you like to know what it was. A distance, really, that he manufactured, going so far even as to create different personalities.
I’d like to say I miss Gamer. I just don’t know who Gamer was.
Yeah that’s true I guess…
I like the games though. That’s what life is.
I think we can do better.
Jerry,
I’m not trying to be an ass… but I’m just gonna assume you’re referring to religion because 1. You usually are and 2. It’ll just save some time, if I’m wrong it’ll still be a good read.
That being said, if the quest to find God is not a game then what is it? I’m not christian, but I’m still after the same thing that you are. It is not a job, nor a chore or a diligence, it is an excersize for the sake of itself. That is why I don’t like the rules in christianity, everyone has their own style of play in any game, for this purpose the individual must be free to find their own path, their own way.
I’m gonna keep playing…
Now that you mention it were the hell has Gamer gone…hopefully he’ll make an appearance at some point… 
I’m not at all referring to religion, and I am usually not.
I’m referring to truth and sincerity, as I usually am.
Whatever,
If you’re looking for truth and sincerity in life you’re living in the wrong century.
For some reason I don’t have the ability to get a thought across to you.
What century would you recommend? This is the only one I have access to.
You got your thought across just fine. I understood it perfectly. A “quest to find God,” or whatever quest one happens to be on, is just a game, an exercise in itself and nothing more. So why not take a page from Gamer’s book and play insincere games as we make our way through life? Got it.
I just disagree, that’s all.
Ok well I didn’t say they had to be insincere
To be honest I have no idea what you mean by ‘I’m looking for truth and sincerity’
Well… we’re all looking for truth, that’s what makes the world go round, the absence of a total truth. If it was readily accessible, then why would anyone think or do anything? Life is about the striving, but we certainly do not want to reach the destination. I mean… it would be like finding out that magical equation in science that explains everything, including ourselves. Looking for truth is the equivalent of saying ‘looking for God’.
As for sincerity, well that’s an illusion, at least in my eyes. If you can show me the difference between a ‘sincere’ act and an ‘insincere’ act I’ll be impressed as they all look fairly ambiguous to me.
It’s fine to disagree… I just wish you’d give me something to work with here.
Fair enough. This doesn’t seem to be asking too much.
Your statement “Looking for truth is the equivalent of saying ‘looking for God’†is an accurate one I would say, at least in so far as what my idea of truth is. Where do we look? Well, we look lots of places and in different places we find different things…different clues, if you will. With respect to this place, ILP, a place where we converse and share ideas and stack up what we’ve found with what others have found and compare and contrast and agree and disagree, I think we have a better chance at finding something closer to what we’re looking for when we engage with each other honestly and sincerely and when we speak to each other from the heart.
I could not do that with Gamer. I found little to be gained by engaging him because I could never trust that what he was saying was even anything he believed. It was all, in fact, a game to him. It is my opinion, based on admittedly nothing more than life experience, that truth comes from sincerity, not gamesmanship.
Then you must think me an illusion. But you should realize that the one thing above all else that can be sincere – that must be sincere – is the search itself. If that is sincere, then by extension so will be the steps that follow, including the dialogue that takes place here on ILP, on threads such as these, between people such as you and me.
Tell me, why do you think that Gamer’s search was so insincere, I mean you told me… but why is his search any different from ours?
Gamer spoke from the heart, he just has a metaphorical heart.
This is where I sort of get confused, I mean we all sort of put on a face when we come here. If we really want to get technical I could say I’m more sincere than you because I pretty much lay it all out there. I don’t personally believe I’m any more sincere in my search than you, even though ‘Jerry’ may be more different to the man behind the keyboard than ‘Gobbo’ is to me.
If Gamer acted like DoL/ID protraying a fundamentally ‘fake’/satirical persona I’d agree, but I don’t think that Gamer was trying to do that. I sensed a desire to keep striving in a Neitzschian will to power sort of way. He might have an unorthadox method for his Zarathustrian ‘friend’ demeanor, but I truly think he cared. At least for a while anyways…
I have no proof or evidence mind you…
In the end analysis we’re all just going to have to form our own opinions about the sincerity of others. I have my opinion about the sincerity of each of Gamer’s multiple identities and you have yours.
The truly unfortunate thing is that this might be the one place in life where we don’t have to do such a thing. This might be the one place we can come to and truly be ourselves.
There is much, in my experience here, to be gained by this.
Very much.
I agree completely.
That’s why I put everything out there. I only have 1 ‘character’ here and although the name might be different, and there might be a monkey face… this is me essentially.
I would agree that we’re free to be ourselves here, wholeheartedly in fact.
but it saddens me that many discover themselves here, and do not carry it over to real life.
Then I would submit that you are less of a game player than what you might think you are.
(That’s a compliment).
Perhaps…
Though I have a tendency to talk in riddles sometimes.
For me the game isn’t so much the search. Ultimately, true knowledge for me comes through self reflection, but I can’t get that without playing the game. And the game… is trying to be heard, communicating.
I could switch to ‘J#2’ and get analytic, or to ‘gamer’ and get metaphoric. In the end words are fallible but sometimes the message gets through. You get a glimpse of that transient plane where we’re all connected. Where me and you and God are all one for a split second.
That’s the game, for me… if that makes sense.
Thanks for the compliment though
Gamer is the worst kind of player. I say this because it is worse to know and not act than it is to not know and to act.
A
Depends what subject we’re talking about here.
personally I didn’t really chat with him to discover my personal truths. At least not on a spiritual level.
There’s a reason this is in creative writing.