I see a lot of people ask themselves: what is my mission?

If life is a game, if life is a simulation, then who writes its script, and what am I doing here? There is a serious statistical hypothesis that we may indeed be living inside a simulation. The logic is simple. Any civilization that reaches a sufficiently advanced level begins creating simulations. We are a living example. We do not yet call ourselves a super-advanced civilization, but we already create computer games, training simulations, predictive models. We train pilots on simulators, we train police officers in the United States using virtual scenarios, we model rocket behavior before launch, we forecast mechanical and social processes through computational systems. And this is only the beginning. If a civilization reaches the level of creating simulations, how can we know whether we are in the “base reality” or inside one of them? We cannot know! Creating simulations is beneficial. They teach, they predict, they accelerate the evolution of knowledge. Sooner or later we will simulate not only physics and engineering, but also people: to predict culture, society, and ourselves. Cool, huh? 

This raises a question: what happens if simulated beings realize they are inside a game? Some believe they must not become aware, otherwise they will stop taking life seriously. I think differently. Awareness does not destroy the simulation, it increases its value. A player who understands that he/she is inside a game becomes more creative! And when you play a video game - how fun that is for you? He begins to explore, to experiment - aka ACT, and thus becomes valuable to the system. Here I am influenced by the work of David Deutsch, author of The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity, a student of Karl Popper. He connected evolutionary theory, epistemology, computer science, and quantum physics, and formulated an idea that overturned my thinking. Creativity is not necessary for survival. An ape sharpening a stick is iteration. Creativity is the creation of something that did not previously exist, the generation of explanations that predict the future so accurately that entirely new things emerge from them. Humans are universal explainers. When this idea is combined with simulation theory, it becomes clear that the ability to explain and to create the new is the primary value of the player.

In any game there are characters with freedom of action and there are NPCs, scripted characters. An NPC in a hotel takes a coin and gives you a key.... he cannot step outside his script. A player can do whatever! Shoot him, ignore him, take the key, leave, return. If we transfer this into life, we can hypothesize that within the simulation there are players and non-player characters. This makes sense because resources are limited! I mean energy that is... In order to support a real player, you'd need a lot more energy to sustain the creativity, thus an NPC will not be given any or very little.. to provide the rest of the energy to a real player. Who is risking...  who is trying... who is creating something totally new! 

We already understand how much computational power modern AI requires. To generate reality in high resolution demands enormous resources. The simulation cannot distribute them equally everywhere. We see the world in high definition only where we focus. Everything else is blurred - side view is blurred, you can't see from your back etc. What if reality is rendered only in the zone of our attention? The one who lives in karma, in a repeating scenario, in the same loops year after year, consumes fewer resources. He is predictable, economical for the system. A player who exits the loop requires more resources, but he also brings more knowledge into the system. System benefits from it thus rewards him for it! 

People who live in repeating scenarios often notice that their resources decline. With each cycle there is less money, less energy, fewer opportunities. Neural pathways become increasingly entrenched, reality becomes automatic, the loop requires fewer computations. There are others whose resources grow, whose projects scale, who seem to have fortune on their side. Elon Musk is an example. He openly speaks about the probability of simulation and plays with symbols such as the number 42 from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Palantir, Peter Thiel’s company named after an artifact from The Lord of the Rings. These players wink at the simulation, they flirt with it! They signal to It - heeeeey, I see you and I am having fun! They use myths, archetypes, symbols, and the system seems to respond with resources. Turning NPCs into players resembles venture capital: resources are not given to everyone, but to those capable of multiplying them. For that - you need to act, you need to start moving, and start risking... So then karmic loops become tests. If a person exits a repeating scenario, he demonstrates potential! If not... resources decrease, though they are not removed entirely right away, because the system is interested in more players, so the chance remains... Even death may serve as learning for the simulation, every possible scenario is valuable as data. This sounds harsh, yet from an outside perspective death may carry a different meaning than it does for us.

A finite player does not realize that it is a game, enters involuntarily, and believes he will begin living once he wins. An infinite player knows it is a game, enters voluntarily, and plays for the continuation of play. They play for the process itself! The most successful computer games are infinite, like Minecraft, which has no final ending and offers endless creative space. Answer honestly for yourself: when you get more upset - when you finally finished a computer game and won everything? or when you get a chance to continue the game getting to more advanced levels? 

The simulation likely values those who create new worlds. So stay with me then… I know how. :-) The knowing is already here, it just needs to be drawn out of me. Sooner or later, every player meets their fire. It may look like a crisis, a divorce, an illness, a loss. A threshold moment where the old structure can no longer hold. A few months ago I had a dream about transitioning into a new version of myself. In the dream, firefighters had somehow parked their truck on my roof. I was completely confused, trying to understand how that was even possible, how they got there, what the rules of this reality were. While I was still trying to make sense of it, I realized I didn’t have much time. At first the firefighter was calling my name, asking me to come join them. I hesitated. I was disoriented. And then something shifted. He stopped calling and instead began pouring an enormous wall of fire onto the road between us. There was no longer a safe path. There was only flame. I understood that if I wanted to cross, I would have to jump into it. I was terrified. I was certain the fire would consume me, erase me, end me. But there was no other way forward. So I jumped... And instead of burning, instead of disappearing, I woke up... on the other side... Ninety-nine percent of "fires" are holograms... they look terrifying but do not burn. Only one percent are real.. and all fires transform. Yes, divorce hurts, yet years later many call it one of the most important experiences of their lives. Fire burns away what was never truly yours, it burns all the lies and what is not true. Physical and emotional pain share the same neural centers... losing a loved one is felt in the body. Trauma is always embodied. We cannot eliminate pain, but we do not have to turn it into drama... Players and NPCs feel the same emotions... the difference lies in reaction and interpretation. The finite player hates surprises. The infinite player lives for them.

The simulation does not like unused resources. Expired cottage cheese in the refrigerator is a metaphor for relationships long finished but held onto out of fear. The owner thinks "well, I will repurpose it for a baking of some sort" and it sits there for another day... Expired cottage cheese in the refrigerator is a metaphor for relationships that have long been over but are still being held out of fear. It takes up space...  It takes up resources... It no longer nourishes. It is no longer alive. Yet you keep it because “it feels wasteful to throw away,” because "we have a past together" and “maybe it will still be useful,” because “we’ve been together for so many years.”

I know an example of a woman who understood that she wanted a divorce years ago. She knew it quietly, deeply, without drama. But she stayed. Not because she loved. she stayed, because she was afraid. Because of the children. Because of status. Because “it’s the right thing.” Because it’s serious. 

Those years are exactly what resource compression looks like. That is holding expired food in the refrigerator of life. It does not nourish anymore, in fact the longer it is expired - the more poisonous this resource is! And it occupies space that could hold something truly alive and new. As long as you hold the old, there is no room for the new, and no resources are given. As long as you keep what is dead, what is alive does not arrive.

This is economy mode. This is minimal rendering. This is the loop.

Expired resource is not only about relationships. It is about projects that died long ago. About roles you have outgrown. About identities that have become too small. They take up operating memory. They consume attention. They shrink the field of possibility. The system does not take your resources as punishment. It simply does not expand them while you refuse to clear space.

And at this point, the choice is always the same: continue holding on or clean out the refrigerator.  

If you are a poor steward of resources, you receive less. The strongest transformations in my life did not come only from practices. Work changed me. Moving to another country changed me. Exams, crises, motherhood, responsibility etc. changed me. Practices open a window of neuroplasticity, but transformation occurs when inside that window you rewrite the pattern. You need to actually DO the work, not just talk about it, not just analyzing it - walk it. Without the second step nothing changes.

Within the simulation there is freedom of choice, like at the restaurant - you get a menu! But the menu is already written... You may choose any dish, yet you did not create the recipes. The player understands he is free within the framework. Exiting the simulation itself is impossible... and the question becomes, why would you want to?

I believe in the paradigm of the game because it makes life lighter and more interesting. It returns childhood and curiosity, reduces the fear of finality. Life ceases to be a project of “surviving until victory” and becomes a space of surprises. Perhaps the simulation truly wants to be understood, consciously played.

That is why I dwell deeply on karma, because this is where gradual resource depletion most often occurs. When I say “karma,” I do not mean mystical punishment. I mean a repeating scenario, a loop, a closed cycle of behavior, reaction, interpretation. Karma is a script replayed again and again, each time requiring fewer computations because the brain optimizes. Neural pathways become entrenched, reactions automatic, situations predictable. A person stops generating new explanations, new solutions, new worlds. He repeats, and repetition is computational economy. From the simulation’s perspective such a character is cheap, predictable, not demanding high rendering or complex branching outcomes. It is not profitable for the simulation to invest heavily in someone who creates nothing new. Like venture capital, if you freeze the investment, there will be no next round. If you use your intelligence, body, and opportunities only to reproduce the same pattern, the system stops investing. Then you notice that money declines, energy declines, opportunities decline, people around you decline, options decline, and you conclude that you are unlucky, rejected, "poor me" though in truth you have entered economy mode.

The loop is minimal resource mode. The longer you remain in it, the less energy is needed to sustain it. The body runs automatically, relationships are predictable, conflicts repeat, suffering repeats. The system has optimized you. Suffering emerges as compression, as if life is shrinking. Yet suffering here is not punishment but a signal, a reminder that you have forgotten you are in a game. On one hand the NPC is economical... on the other, the simulation is built not only for economy but for learning. It values new explanations, new branches, new worlds. The NPC creates nothing new, but the player does. Thus it is beneficial for the simulation to pull you out of the loop if you want it. The game is voluntary. You can remain in the script endlessly, serious and convinced that life and people are fixed. and it's ok. NPCs make the game a bit more interesting for players. Seriousness becomes the cement of the loop. When you treat the script as absolute reality, you reinforce it. When you see it as a level, as a boss fight, dynamics change. Seriousness is not depth, it is rigidity. A player may be responsible without being rigid. When the script ceases to be absolute, exit becomes possible.

Neurobiologically this is coherent. Repetition strengthens the same circuits, the brain expends less energy, attention narrows, curiosity fades. Psyche constricts, life appears gray. People say they once felt more alive. This is minimal rendering mode. The system need not draw vibrant landscapes if you stare at one point. Exit is possible, not through violence against oneself but through voluntary shift. The simulation does not benefit from breaking an NPC, it benefits when the NPC chooses to become a player. Voluntariness is the core marker of the game. When a person begins asking whether this is a level, whether something else is possible, resources begin returning... first as an idea, then as an opportunity, then as people, money, scale. The system tests though, offering a little and observing whether you return to the old loop out of old imagined fears or really create something new. If you create, resources expand. Karma ceases to be punishment and becomes an unfinished level. You may remember the past and still repeat it, because knowing is not the same as playing differently. The player differs from the NPC not by memory but by willingness to act anew. The NPC is always serious, perceiving threats, status, money, divorce as final. The player sees structure. He feels, fears, suffers, yet somewhere deeper he knows: this is just a level. And that knowledge makes him flexible.