Last week, at the Open House for the Deep Play Institute, I invited prospective players into a game of Existential Hide & Seek. We remembered how to play the game by first actually physically hiding, and letting ourselves be found in our super clever hiding spots (under a table, in the bathroom, inside an oven!!), and then considered how we might be hiding āin plain sight" ā under our many identities, diagnoses, productive activities. As it always happens, the games I design end up affecting me the most (at least as far as I know), spilling into every part of my life and taking me for an emotional and existential roller coaster š¢
Not that Iām complainingāI am here to play with everything š¤” ā¾ļø š²
In my practice (and philosophy!) of Ludic Liberation, Hide & Seek is a core existential game dynamic. More than just a childhood thrill, Hide & Seek mirrors the play of divine awareness as described in some of the teachings of Non-Dual Shaiva Tantra. According to this school of thought, divine awareness (also known as as consciousness, God, spirit, Shiva) is always manifesting itself through five primary acts:
Creation
Maintenance
Dissolution
Concealment (also known as Occultation)
Revelation (also known as Grace)
In our current Consensus Reality that privileges the masculine, the cognitive, and the material, we give most of our conscious cultural energy to the act of Creation (innovation, thrust) and to some extent to the process of Maintenance (reproduction, expansion, growth). On the other hand, we tend to ignore and even intentionally repress awareness of the other three universal functions: Dissolution, Concealment, and Revelation. Partly due to my concern for their neglect, and also in part due to my interest in all things secret yet powerful, these three divine acts are my favorite :)
I play with Dissolution (destruction, reversal, unraveling) a lot in my game designs. But I also think the dynamics of Concealment & Revelation especially when taken together, offer quite a bit of gamemaking potential. Concealment & Revelation is the secret pleasure formula behind every puzzle (finding that stubborn fitting piece!), of every escape room (we delight in having the solution hidden from us and having to work to uncover it), of every mystery novel (following the clues of whodunnit) and every action film (we always know the hero will win, but how?). Of course itās also the pleasure of every romantic pursuitāthe thrilling puzzle of concealing and revealing our emotional and physical nakedness from/to one another. I guess we pretty openly appreciate the play of concealment and revelation for the purposes of entertainment and diversion. But we forget that itās also a primary dynamic of our own existential experience. We have hidden things from ourselves! We have hidden parts of ourselves from ourselves! And we are playing a game of finding those parts! Except sometimes (often) we forget that we are playing this game.
Forgetting that Existential Hide & Seek is a consensual and rewarding game and an inevitable part of our life journey can have pretty detrimental psychological effects.
Feeling like you are lostāwhen you donāt know that youāre supposed to be ālostā right now, and that youāre not really, actually lostācan be scary, confusing, and frustratingālike the plot of a horror movie rather than a fun adventure of discovery. Being āunfoundā for a long time by others and ourselves can make us feel abandoned and alone. And when we are finally āfound,ā the experience might feel embarrassingālike everyone might laugh at our hiding spot, or mock us for hiding there for so long in the first place. Itās awful to feel like we are playing a game we arenāt sure weāre playing correctly, and so keep messing up at.
Iāve been viscerally encountering these dynamics of Existential Hide & Seek in my own life this past week. In particular, I recently discovered that I have a neurodevelopmental condition that Iāve lived with my entire life but wasnāt aware of. On the one hand, the discovery made me feel extremely seen and found ā wow, yes, thatās me, thank you for finally finding me!! On the other hand, it made me feel terribly sad and angry for being hidden and unseen for so long! How could I and everyone else miss the clues? What other āhidden in plain sightā aspects of ourselves could we all be completely oblivious to? Being āfoundā in the game of Existential Hide & Seek might feel like it needs to be followed with quite a bit of therapy!!!
Where do you (knowingly and unknowingly) play Existential Hide & Seek in your life? What are some ways youāve been found lately? Are you feeling particularly lost these days. . . or maybe proud of the ways youāve hidden? Are there certain people you trust to play this game with you more than others? What makes them such skilled seekers?
Reply and let me know, or leave a comment on this letterās thread ā¤µļø
I am very excited and grateful to have a container to explore these and other Existential Gameplay questions through the Games We Play With Ourselves workshop series that starts THIS WEDNESDAY š! There are still a few spots left and sliding scale tuition available if you would like to join! I also made a cool Instagram graphic thatās overflowing with existential play symbolism that Iād like to leave for you below to enjoy š
Thank you for playing, liberators.
~ Natalia
Existential Game Maker/Destroyer
Natalia, this is your best lab report yet (and they are all fantastic). Hide and Seek is definitely my number one game (thus my entry into the first Refuse journal). But to have someone see it the way you do feels to me like being found. I had a hide and seek dream a few days ago.
Dream Invasion, Oct 3 2021
Iām staying in a condo or an apartment by the beach
And there's a row of them
All the condos are similar
A friend is staying with me.
We get separated, somehow
as if we are separated by someone or something.
Something has changed about the condo
and Iām aware we are both still in the condo
but we canāt find each other.
As I look for her
sheās also looking for me.
We were together in the same room
and then something shifted
and now though we are still in the same room
we cannot find each other.
Itās confusing to be together
and not be able to find each other.
For a second I wonder if she never was
then I remember that itās dangerous to think like that
I have to hold on to what I feel in my body
and thatās that we were in the room together
and now we canāt find each other
I can hear her and she can hear me
but we canāt find each other
Itās nighttime but light pollution brightens the sky
And I see that the sky is full of parachutes.
The sky is filled with small aircraft,
like small gliders of some sort,
Thousands of them
and they all have their chutes open
We are being invaded
I can feel in my body
that weāve been invaded
Iām surprised and Iām not surprised
Thereās a lot happening by design
this confusion
and separating ourselves from each other
this is by design
We have to leave
We have to get out of here
Iām on a train
More like an above-ground monorail system
It travels very fast
We are traveling through a forest
but high on the monorail system
near the treetops
We are traveling a long distance
very fast
I see lights below
At each stop, I get off to look
Iām running through the station, scouring
Iām looking for her
We're looking for each other
I get back on the train and at the next stop
I do the same thing
At every station, Iām searching
But I cannot find her
We keep missing each other
The trains move so fast
they carve light into the darkness.