I’ve felt fear, excitement and plenty of curiosity as I’ve explored the world, the people and the moments that have come my way. To live could be described as a chance to partake in a journey with levels of games throughout.

We’re able to go about a stable temperature in an unstable mindset. Endless choices assail us and we often follow them despite unfavorable outcomes. We play roles in series of events that seem to be played along with us. A cast of characters appears at exactly the right moments to fill a role in some way of our making—the right friend or conman at the right time. Cue the weather and turn on the lights as the cameras roll, endlessly capturing a film in our image.

Along the way, we ruthlessly edit the film by selectively remembering the parts we want to include and forgetting the parts we wish to omit. We rearrange the roles and other actors, create varying relationships with the cast members in our circle, and do our best to keep a decent appearance throughout. We cut actors out of our lives. We move sets and change the rules. And, most importantly, we toggle our perspective to reinterpret what those rules mean. We fool ourselves into playing the games of others, asking ourselves halfway through how the roles got swapped and how we ended up in this or that position. Suddenly, all the fun is forgotten as we take a serious stance on what was supposed to be fun all along.

When we were kids, the game rules were clear. Breaking them had consequences but blurring the lines of the game taught us the rules were elastic. As we grow old, the games blur into one another. The roles become increasingly complex and the outcomes seem to matter more. Our interpretation of the rules becomes rigid, even as we witness others break them. Tripping and falling hurts more. Quitting is tougher on the psyche and the depth of talent on the bench seems to dwindle. We forget our lines, stumble in our efforts, and finally end up playing as we did at the start—alone, with the consequences of our actions having an immeasurably small influence on the world.