What if life is a game?

Hammocks, gamifying and Bermuda Chub

Apr 20, 2025

My heart spills over in the presence of this beauty

Dear Reader

Thank you for being here, taking time to read these despatches. I love to think of you settling down with a cup of something warming or a cold glass of something delicious, to catch up on this week’s reflections. They are long enough to invite a pause in your day, an interrupt in your habitual ways of thinking and seeing. I write to explore and connect with something beyond myself and to invite you to do the same. Thank you (and thank yourself) for being open to the treasures within.

❦

It’s dark. I spent the day on the deck, adding more layers of clothing and a blanket as the temperature dropped. Back from a trip to the east coast, we returned to the deciduous trees ‘clothed all in green, ho ho.’

Spring made a dramatic entrance while we were gone. The sun whispered, ‘come, be outside.’ A little Spring cleaning first. The green winter coat on chairs and table shrugged off with a damp cloth. Joyfully pulling cushions and hammock from their storage hideaways. What bliss to sit outside and hear the birds (and chainsaws and mowers) while I read, write and contemplate, letting all the stimulation of the last twelve days assimilate and settle.

Nursing a cold, I flirted with the idea of a walk but opted for listening to an audiobook in the hammock, gazing up at the trees. If I were to die in my sleep tonight, I can’t think of a better final day. Content. Love in my heart, possibilities for more expansion quickening around the edges. Isn’t that what we’re here for, to feel fully into the aliveness of our being? And oh how often I forget!

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The soft glow of a beeswax candle on the desk keeps me company, a favourite playlist of mindfulness music is on shuffle. For a runner, pulling on trail shoes alerts the body, ‘we’re going for a run’; in the same way, the sound of this playlist tells my mind, ‘we’re going to write.’

I used to edit articles to Handel’s Messiah. It’s fun to create playlists for different tasks. When we stop taking things seriously, fun is hiding in plain sight1.

In Florida, Paul’s daughter Lauren, a gamer, shared the idea of gamifying every day things in your life to make them more fun and interesting. For her, workouts at the gym. What else could we gamify in life: work, relationships, writing, cooking, gardening, camping, building careers, building businesses, sickness, fitness, life and death? To gamify: to make a game of. I let my mind expand …

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What makes a good game?

Unknown outcomes
stages or levels
goal or target
element of fun
expansion of what you know
expansion of self
colour, sound, costume
points or prizes
witnesses

What makes a good gamer?

A purpose
close observation
paying attention
focus diffuse and one pointed
adaptability
quick wits
an element of chance
willingness to go
beyond discomfort
willingness to be silly
lose yourself
and your dignity

Riffing on gamifying. Random ways to gamify your life:-

Choose a character to play each day and do one task in character: monk, artist, inventor, astronaut, pirate, olympic athlete, storyteller, gardener, opera singer,
Sing your way through chores - pick a theme. 80s classics, ballads or my personal favourite, country and western.
Dance your way through laundry. Can you listen to the Bee Gees, Staying Alive and not begin to move your body?
When I find myself in judgement, judge in a Brummie accent (slang for Birmingham). City of my birth but not an accent I acquired. Choose an accent that tickles you.
Do internal sports commentary for tasks you normally do on autopilot.. ‘She’s heading down the first aisle in the grocery store at a steady pace. Wait. She’s stopped and she’s scanning the display. Yes. There she goes. She’s got the bag of oranges and quickly adds lemons and apples to the cart. That’s three things off her list. Now it’s on to the cheese section. Will she stick to the list or go off piste? Her hand hovers over the goats cheese. Will she take it? No. She passes on the goats cheese but takes the mozzarella with a decisive swipe.’
Habit inventory. Which are your best selling habits that add to the richness and depth of your life and which are gathering dust and no longer serve you?
Write the story of how you achieved your wildest dream (add magic, helpers, obstacles, really go for it. Bring it to life)
Write mini adventures on small pieces of paper, fold them in half and toss into a glass vase or bowl. Each day pick one out and commit to doing that adventure. You can use ChatGPT to help curate your own list by giving it parameters eg close to home, walkable, costs less than $10, solo, etc
Need some silliness? Compliment your self, your pet or your loved one in the voice of a medieval courtier. ‘Thou art the fairest hound in all the land. Thine eyes are deepest blue, bluer than all the oceans in this fair land.’

What about gaming your entire life?

That sounds wild, radical and surely we have to be more serious than that? But really, what if Life is a game? Not my life or your life, but Life. A game of the formless coming into form and dissolving again in a ceaseless ebb and flow. You, me, humanity, all species, just endless forms coming and going. How does this perspective change daily life?

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Going beyond thought with Bermuda Chub

Along came a chance to snorkel off a boat over a coral reef in the Florida Keys. First time snorkelling off a boat, first time snorkelling over a tropical reef. The exuberantly turquoise waters and high twenties temps said, ‘come on in, the water’s lovely.’

We were warned the water was choppy. The Texan captain breezily reeled off the safety information. The sign for ‘help’ or ‘I’m okay’ delivered in rapid fire after the warning not to try and climb the ladder in your flippers.

Noodles stacked up at the back of the boat

I approached the back of the boat cautiously, took a noodle (woggle) to help with flotation, held on tight to the rail and pulled on my flippers inelegantly.

The boat was listing as I gingerly descended the metal ladder, gripping tightly. As I launched into the water and tried to adjust my mask, a wave hit me and water went up my nose and in my mouth. I spat it out. Adjusting the noodle under my chest helped me float. My hair, up in a messy bun fell down the back of my head, pulling the mask straps down. One ear was bent over by the strap. Every time I tried to adjust it while treading water, I swallowed more seawater as wave after wave jostled me.

I watched my mind consider going into panic. Then a different thought sidled in with quiet authority: ‘just lie down and put your face in the water.’ Putting the snorkel in my mouth, I did exactly that.

As the water closed around my head, the world, the waves and all thought dissolved.

I remembered the minimal effort needed to glide through the water when you’re wearing flippers. Arms by my side, I flapped my hands gently. A few minutes later I was above the reef seeing my first ever tropical fish. Wow!

A shoal of Bermuda Chub (were they?) parted and swam around me. Mesmerised, awe struck I went very still, feeling like an honoured guest in this watery wonderland. One fish touched my leg as it passed. I flinched slightly as I felt the scales. Of course! Fish have scales. How could I forget? Later, two Bermuda Chub swam past me then turned around and hovered, I swear, they looked me in the eye. I laughed into my mask.

Enchanted I returned to the boat. As I broke the surface the whole water swallowing thing kicked off again but I didn’t care. I slowly climbed the ladder pulling off my flippers as the boat rose and fell with the chop.

Back on board the college kids lay out on the front of the ship sunbathing like mermen and maids. The music blared, beers were passed round as we sped on to the next spot. I remained lost in a reverie. The game of running the gauntlet of the waves had me pass through a portal into a hidden world where the boundaries of separation shimmered and fell away for an instant. Beyond the constraints of my habitual thought patterns, new experiences bloomed.

I’ve a growing awareness that connection is the most important thing. Shout out to my husband

Paul Murk

for teaching me this by how he shows up in the world. I’m a slow learner at times, but it is starting to sink in. Nothing I think is important is really that important, but connection? Connection is priceless and I wonder, can it deepen infinitely?

I don’t know how long I get to be in this human form, what if the ‘end of all striving’ is simply to feel deeply and utterly alive through all the joys and sorrows?

The faded Florida Reef Fish identification card on board

Questions

What could you gamify in your life?
How does making connection the purpose of any interaction change your experience? (For example, rather than go to the store to pick up groceries, what if going to the store to pick up groceries is viewed as an opportunity to connect with people, food and yourself?)

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Small Joys

Why does lying in a hammock on a weekday afternoon feel so deliciously subversive? Perhaps because many of us have been raised to prize BEING PRODUCTIVE. After reading
Carla Royal
’s piece on rock time and pages from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, Serviceberry, it struck me: lying looking up at the trees in wonder and appreciation, letting the ‘shutters of my heart open’ (thank you for that exquisite invitation
Rebecca Barry
) to the wonder of the trees, is not unproductive. Quite the opposite. It is profoundly productive. Every time we look and really see another being, we are building a web of appreciation and connection that has us show up differently in the world. Who knows the impact on the trees. Do they see themselves through our looking at them? When we never really look and connect, it feels okay to tear others down, destroy others. Once we really look, we see ourselves reflected everywhere, for we are all animated by the same energy of being. We look away, thinking we cannot bear the truth of this, yet we long for it.
A day of resting and nesting, making soup and baking a cake with music filling the space. Me and my beloved chilling together.
The writing on Substack. It uplifts me, has me challenging my assumptions and ideas.2

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Threads that pull me

I returned home to the book, What The Wild Sea Can Be - The Future of the World’s Ocean by Helen Scales. First off, how delicious is it that a woman with the surname Scales has written a book about the oceans. Was it destiny?

It reminds me of Diana Nyad, author, long distance swimmer and motivational speaker. Her 110 mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida in 2013 at the age of 65 was the subject of a 2023 film Nyad directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, starring Annette Benning, Jodie Foster and Rhys Ifans. Did her last name, meaning water nymph, pre-destine her path?

I came across this book thanks to

Emma Gannon

who wrote about being a judge for the Women’s Non Fiction Prize 2025. I took the list of six short listed books to La Conner Swinomish Library to see if they had any of them. So far they have sourced two of the titles and ordered at least one other. How cool is that. Shout out for libraries and librarians.

When I opened the book at random, the page mentioned San Juan Island and orcas. They’re in my back yard!

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How I know ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore Toto’

A regular slot for things that catch my eye that tell me I’m no longer in Ferryside, West Wales, UK.

The 42nd Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is ‘committed to promoting and preserving the rich agricultural heritage of Skagit Valley.’ This annual festival lasts 30 days and typically attracts 500,000+ visitors to the valley. How many opportunities to play and connect does this festival of colour offer locals and visitors alike?

Pictures of tulips, individual flowers and long shots of rows of tulips of a variety of colours — A riot of colour at the Tulip Festival

An English Woman with her camera in Skagit County, WA

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