Control

I've been thinking about reality vs. beliefs and illusions. If you'd asked me a few months ago what I thought about the whole situation, I'd probably have given you "Reality is that nobody can control anything. Nobody can know anything and we're only flailing in vain at coincidences and things beyond our control."

But as I sat last night, getting my character Belethor to level 16 in Puzzle Quest, I realize we do have control. Similar to the moves I make in a chess game or the jewels I switch in a video game puzzle, there's a degree of control I have over my immediate environment. More interestingly, I can create vast change in my global environment depending on how I act. Like a pawn move that opens lines of attack and protects vital squares, like a combo in my puzzle game, like a spider in a web, like a butterfly who flaps his tiny wings that pushes some wind which pushes other wind and 100 years later, there's a hurricane on the other side of the planet.

I can't calculate that far with each of my actions, but just like in Chess, there's an intuition, a strategy, and a limited amount of calculation that makes my control real.