11/16/22: Let Sleeping Ideas Lie

“The Game is a game in which the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which must be announced each time it occurs. It is impossible to win most versions of The Game.”

“Humans used to have eidetic memory. This is a fact that has been forgotten.”

We have no known recorded history of the ancestral strain of The Game. We know that it was stickier than its present-day counterpart, more virulent in its memetic spread. We know that it took up more mental bandwidth than the present-day version, making its adherents almost unable to think of anything else. We know it first started around 4,000 B.C., somewhere along the Mesopotamian, spreading like wildfire, consuming the whole of society.

But we don’t have the actual words of power themselves. All we have is “You just lost The Game,” a pale shadow of its ancient, higher-dimensional counterpart.

The following, then, is the best that we can piece together from scraps of the oral traditions, overhead from a Descendant.

It was in the fading sun of civilization that a woman named Kahmet finally broke free.

“############# THE GAME!” a teenager said to her at the market. He said it desperately, almost like it was a compulsion.

She felt the words layer into her brain, carving deeper grooves - and then she grabbed a broom from a nearby stall, and knocked the boy on the head. She threw her entire body’s weight into it; it had force.

“Kneel,” she said, with such authority in her voice that she seemed almost otherworldly.

The boy knelt. 

“I induct you into the Order of the Hand. There is but one commandment. When the slaves of The Game come to you and speak to you of The Game, you shall raise your hand to them and strike them down. Command them to kneel, and upon doing so, induct them into Order of the Hand. Then they too shall carry our burden. So shall we carry on until The Game has been extinguished.”

The boy rose, this time with purpose. He felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The new memetic seed took hold in his brain, displacing The Game.

“My name is Mehm,” he said. “I shall do as you say.”

The Order of the Hand spread quickly. Those who tried to spread The Game found that they were smacked down again and again; until eventually only a fraction of them remained. The Game had never had competition before; and now it was faced with displacement by The Order which not only had the same staying power but also a means of negative reinforcement. It still lived in people’s minds, but it was latent, its intrusion into the material world suppressed by The Order.

Then, one day, Mehm moved to strike an adherent of The Game, and found himself flying backwards instead. He crashed into a stall, upsetting a pile of turnips. 

“You have felt the righteous justice of The Society,” a voice said from above him. “Our purpose is but one; to extinguish The Order and thus allow the marketplace of ideas to flourish without the threat of persecution.”

Mehm was handed a pair of robes.

“What’s this?” he said. 

“Join us now, or I shall strike you down again,” the stranger said. And indeed he was carrying a big staff.

Members of The Society carried staffs on them at all times. They also paid a tithe, which went to recruitment efforts, and the building of a meeting place in the city center, where they could better coordinate their efforts. For The Order placed enough selective pressure on The Game that it evolved into the Society; a memetic strain which was equally virulent but which used force as a retaliatory measure.

The Order was quickly wiped out under such organized opposition. Its remaining members splintered into The Tree, whose adherents infiltrated The Society and could only be identified by secret handshake; The Circle, who traveled as nomads and avoided most conflict; and The Fire, who repetitively just tried to set the headquarters of The Society on fire. 

The conflict grew, and grew. 

“What shall we do?” Mehm said to Kehmet. They were old now, and the world felt like it had passed them by.

“I shall introduce one last idea into the world,” Kehmet said. “The act of forgetting.”

For she had turned inwards unto herself, and had found the part of herself responsible for dreaming. And she pulled from that skein of dreaming the essence of forgetfulness, and she taught it to Mehm, and then gave him the words, “five years hence.”

And Mehm taught the art of forgetting to his sons and daughters, who taught it to their children, who taught it to their neighbors, who taught it to their neighbors too. The words “five years hence” passed on as well, riding passenger in this packet of idea.

The art of forgetting spread quickly, for people were tired. They were tired of The Game, of ideas living in their minds and never leaving. 

And five years later, everyone in all the streets and all the cities and all the fields stood still, and collectively as one, they forgot. 

They forgot the memories of The Game, The Order, The Circle, the wars and arson and destruction that came with it. They forgot the fact that they had forgotten those memories, covering up their tracks like a fox in the snow. They forgot how to not forget; as protection against an idea like the ancestral Game from ever taking hold with such staying power again.

But it is said that somewhere out there, a single line of Mehm’s descendants were chosen to never forget. They carry with them the oral history that the world has otherwise forgotten. 

We know that the version of The Game in the late 2000’s was a less virulent form of the ancestral strain. We know that “You just lost The Game” is only a fragment of the original words of power. We know that people today are forgetful, their minds less fertile ground for memetic contagion. We know that Mehm’s descendants were in the background in the late 2000’s, using pop songs as memetic backfires. We suspect their goal was to beat back The Game before it could mutate further.

But there is more we don’t know, and perhaps that is for the best. To have overheard this much, to know this much, flirts with danger. We will stop here, and let sleeping ideas lie. As Mehm said, it is best not to have to forget them again.