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Games of Shadows, A game of life.

This is the second article on Game of life. I would like to look at games of shadows we play. Shadows are interesting. I am sure you felt something when I say shadows. Some dark hidden feeling, corners of your house, edges of windows and haunting ghosts. I was not a fan of shadows, but these are such stories about the silhouette of life in front of our eyes.


Silhouette of life

The poem itself harbor the meaning of life. Life is a silhouette. An impossible dream, when you think about the illusion of time. But, to understand better we need to take the walk again slowly in the memory lane. Previously I wrote about lanterns, and games we played with lanterns. One such was to display shadows on a wall. I could make a dog, a dancer and a drummer on the wall just using my fingers. We will analyze the shadow making in detail to understand the illusion it creates.


Light source-> had gesture -> shadow on the wall.


Games of shadows

Now let's analyze a shadow. As long as there is light, and my had to block the light there will be a shadow on the wall. As the shadow is formed when rest of the wall is illuminated with light. As long as there is the lantern, eliminating light, and my hand is blocking part of it, there will be a dancer on the wall. If I blocked all the light, or for some reason the lantern blown with the wind, the shadow will disappear. If I removed the hand again shadow will disappear. And if there was not a wall the shadow would not form. So, the shadow is not a real thing. right? Shadow is just an illusion on the wall. A 'thing' which is dependent on the light source and the hand. A shadow is neither light source, nor the hand but 'something' which appears when both of these reasons aligned themselves. (Those are not the only reasons for the shadow to be formed, if you read the article reasons beyond reasons. But for now, we can limit ourselves for the clarity of thought)


Conclusions from the game of shadows

  • So, the conclusions are the light source, and the hand and wall are the reasons for the shadow.

  • We assume shadow is just an illusion, created on the wall, as that is not touchable, and also dependent on the reasons.

  • Shadow will be there as long as these reasons are there. Moment, they disappear the shadow will disappear. So, they are inseparable.


Games of life

Now, let's look at the shadow again. This time let's look how we see the shadow on the wall. Let's look at a fraction of a second in time to understand the Optics and reflections. There is contrasting colors on the wall, created by above reasons, which creates the shadow. This light reflected by the Lense in our eye, creates a reflection on the posterior wall in our eyeball. With some chemical mechanisms the electrical signals generated travel to the brain and understand this as a 'shadow' with previous information we gained by past learning.


'Real shadow eliminate light' -> reflected by Lense-> creates a shadow in eyeball-> interpret by brain and process of thinking.


If you would agree anything we see or hear, or smell or touch are creating such shadows in our brain. And, whether we like it or not that is what we are doing all our lives. Creating shadows and interpreting them. Now if we apply these characteristics of game of shadows to game of live it will provide some valuable intuitions.


Spring walk poem

Conclusions from game of life.

Light emitted by wall, eyes and thinking process are reasons for seeing a shadow on the wall.

So, the shadow we identified, is not the real thing, it is just a reflection. Or a shadow, of a shadow. Similar to the shadow on the wall, shadow in our brain is there as long as the reasons are there. (As long as you stare at the wall you will see a shadow, as it will create a shadow in your eye and brain will recognize it)


This lets me understand that the world, I live in is just a shadow, created inside the brain, or the process of thinking. As long as there are reasons, these shadows will be formed. And there is nothing more to it. Nothing less to it. Just a Giant shadow. Although I think "I am doing, things to the world" What I am really doing is adjusting the reasons, so that there would be better shadows created in the mind. Which "I like". And I see "me" or myself is just another shadow.


Game of life

Like when the mind gets a thought, "I need to travel". What I am essentially doing, is adjusting the parameters which will create new shadows in the brain. To do that, I would, get a leave, prepare my bag, and travel on a bus to a faraway place, and take a walk deep inside a forest. And there the reasons of the jungle, will create new shadows in my brain, which will be interpreted as 'I am inside a jungle, far away from humans, and I can feel the wind on my forehead tossing my hair, I can hear the buzzing bees' type of image. As long as I am in the jungle, these shadows will be there, and they cannot be separated from "me". The moment I leave the jungle, another set of shadows will start to form.


Then I say to myself, Oh come on they are just Shadows.


Life is a journey


And, without complicating too much, I will end the article here. If you look at carefully at your life, you will see all these shadows. Your mind just created for you. Shadows, of tastes of ice-cream, shadows of films, shadows of your friends and family, even when they are in front of you will see they are just shadows. And they disappear when you close your eyes. Just try. And once you learn to see shadows. You can read article on characteristics of these shadows. On mental objects.

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