How a computer nerd hacked the universe
So I went around to my friend’s house to talk about a development we were doing together.
We go into his home office – kind of a man-den. It was obvious that this was where he did his work and his whiskey drinking.
I’d been to their place to dinner a few times but I’d never been given access to the den. It felt like I should have learnt a secret handshake or something.
Anyway, after a while hanging out and looking over some designs I notice he’s got this little wooden sign on his desk.
It was an unusual thing. On the top part it had “Difficulty Setting:” embossed into the wood. Below that it had EASY, NORMAL and HARD. There was also this kind of pointer thing – like those score counters in pool.
It was set to EASY.
I point to it and ask him about it. He laughs and looks a little bashful. He knows what I get up to and says, “If I tell you it’s not going to end up in one of your blogs, is it?”
I’m like, “nah mate.”
Anyway, he says that he first came up with this thing about 10 years ago. He was going through a rough trot. Things weren’t flowing his way. He had no money in the bank, he was in debt, someone stole his car, and then his dad died.
Life had hit him with a sledge hammer.
He thought about throwing in the towel.
And he said he was joking to his friend one day that it felt like the difficulty level on his life had jumped up to HARD while he wasn’t looking.
I got what he was talking about, but I wonder if everyone does. He says he played a lot of computer games in his teenage years – kind of when they were first coming out. A lot of those games let you choose the difficulty setting.
Easy meant there weren’t many enemies about, and they were terrible shots. It was a walk in the park.
Difficult was when you got swarmed by bad guys and they were all crack shots.
Normal was kind of how the game makers intended it to be played.
He said that back when he was a teenager, and back when games were super expensive, he couldn’t buy a new game every time he’d finish one.
So he’d go through and ‘clock’ the game on the normal setting. After that, he’d go back and set the difficulty to HARD and clock it again.
So that’s what he meant. It felt like his life had been set to HARD and everything was getting the better of him.
“You should set your life to EASY,” his mate joked.
And so as a joke he went back and stuck a sign, scrawled on some paper, to his desk: Difficulty Setting: EASY.
He meant it as a joke but something happened.
Because he had that experience with computer games – when the EASY setting was often so easy it was comical – enemy robots would practically blow themselves up – his sign evoked a really strong feeling.
And that feeling was that things were easy. All challenges were a matter of course. It was all about fun. You had unlimited ammo and infinite lives. There was no doubt that you might lose.
And so every time he looked at that sign, it brought back that feeling. It’s fun. It’s easy. All the odds are stacked in my favour.
I’m sure people stick motivational posters to their walls – pictures of dolphins with “The cosmos wants you to succeed you gorgeous snowflake” written on it.
But for him. This is what worked. This is what spoke to him.
And after a while, it started to work. After a while, life did feel easy. His challenges weren’t as hard to get through. He received help from unlikely places. His enemies blew themselves up.
And after a few years, he’d become so impressed with it, that he got his friend to make him up the sign that is still on his desk.
He confided to me that it really felt like he had “hacked” the universe. That something happened when he wrote out that sign that sent a very clear signal to the universe – “I’d like life to be a bit easier please.”
And the universe was only too happy to agree.
(Note two of the keys to manifestation here: write it down, and focus on the feeling first.)
And he reckons that since then, life has just been one success after another.
Nice. I’ll have one of your top shelf whiskeys then, thanks.
I asked him if he ever thought about setting the difficulty to hard.
And he said, “You know what. Sometimes I do. It’s like the computer games. There’s the thrill of the challenge. It’s exciting to overcome incredible odds.
And I used to worry that I was making myself soft – by choosing the EASY setting I was missing opportunities for growth.
But I’ve decided that I’m happy with the difficulty setting on EASY. I’m just going to focus on progressing through more levels.
I mean, even on the easiest difficulty setting, the journey to Prime Minister of Australia would be incredibly difficult and challenging.
So I’m just going to let everything come easy. I’m just going to go deeper and further than I ever thought I could. That’s my plan.
And at the end of the day, it might just all be in my head, but I just enjoy life more this way.
I’m playing for fun.”
This was too good. I said he had to let me write about it.
Ok. Just don’t use my name.
No worries Garry.
Now, I’m not sure if he really did hack the universe, but I am sure that if you approach life like a walk in the park with unlimited ammo, you are putting yourself in a very powerful state of mind.
And that state of mind will get results.
Where’s your difficulty setting at?
ron goddard says
hi jonno,
i am glad you mentioned that. its so easy to fall into mental ‘traps’ that bind us into depression and other nasties. many teachers of positive thinking agree that the mind is the most powerful thing going around, so, if one can write down the ‘difficulty easy’ thing the mind will grasp it and hey presto! you are flying with the angels. thank you for that jonno, you must have read my thoughts(mind) this morning as i was thinking only just before i sat down at the computer that maybe i was running around too much and i should take it easy. i don’t know why i thought this, honestly.. did you send me a prompt?:-) my setting has now been shifted from moderate to very easy.
a lot of the stuff we think about does not really matter and what if it did? take it easy man!
cheers from ron in west oz
KatM says
Navigating bureaucratic nasties is unpleasant at the best of times. The governments around the world should make the paradigm shift to easy in taxation & important economic sectors.
If we put up shields and become wrapped up in own baggage then things feel difficult.
Even Christ exhorted that “…my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30)
The right attitude carries at least 60% of the effort it takes to plough through life’s challenges.
Mine are a breeze on some fronts but often category 4 cyclonic in nature.
Rick Eason says
Jon, yes the mind is powerful. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” However, discoveries in information science make a nonsense of the Cosmic Humanist belief that an impersonal “universe” can respond to our thoughts.
SETI (search for extra terrestrial life) is a costly scientific program. Its radio telescopes monitor and
analyse electromagnetic radiation reaching earth from outer space. All radiations over the years have been random noise that contains no information.
What SETI is hoping to receive is a carefully structured information (e.g. radiation that conforms to a known pattern, such as the first 20 prime numbers). If that happens, the scientific world will accept that as evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
Why would they accept information as evidence? Centuries of scientific observation have
shown that only intelligent beings produce information.
The most densely packed information in the known universe is the DNA molecule in every cell of a human body. On that basis, renowned scientists such as Sir Fred Hoyle, Dr Paul Davies, Dr Deane Kenyon and Dr Michael Behe and many other scientific researchers now accept that life was intelligently designed. It also convinced Oxford Universities most notorious atheist, Prof Anthony Flew to write his book “There is a God.”
Charles Darwin believed that his theory of evolution explained the development of different species. What fake news never tells us is that Darwin knew and wrote about the fact that evolution does not explain the origin of life. The obvious reason is that something must be alive and able to reproduce before mutations can be subject to natural selection.
Life and the universe have been designed by an astonishing intellect. While science can say nothing about the designer, there is cogent evidence of his/her/its nature.
There really are only four major worldviews left. Two, Marxism and Secular Humanism, claim that
there is no designer apart from man, which means their philosophies have been rendered invalid by the very science they have worshiped for so long. A third worldview, Cosmic Humanism tries to turn “the universe” into a person and imagines it responding to human intelligence.
The fourth major worldview is biblical Christianity. It is so in touch with truth and reality that it produced the scientific revolution of the 17th century, the resulting industrial revolution of the 18th century that produced western prosperity. Centuries before either of those events, English judges were basing the common law on Christ’s teachings and forging the justice, peace and tranquillity that draws almost all the world’s migrants and refugees to one of five countries – Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America.
It’s time to call a spade a spade. The other three worldviews have been prevalent, indeed dominant, in many countries around the world. How have they benefited those countries? Jesus said: “by their fruits you shall know them”?
While all sorts of gadgets keep us “entertained”, wilful ignorance toward God and His Christ could slowly strangle everything that we value.
Ken says
Totally agree with this Jon. I once read a book that said “The Universe is a universal storehouse of knowledge,” and all you have to do is ask, and it will be yours.
David Hancock says
My birthday today…..nice read…..I’m definitely going to “take it easy”!
Geoff Burges says
Hey Jon, I needed this thought shift, my setting for 2017 has been way above extremely difficult, lost my mum in march, farming over here in the west, since March hardly any rain, 10% of normal, so first year ever with no prospect of grain harvest, then just to cap it all off, lost my Dad early July. Both parents were in early 80s, but still hard to say goodbye for final time…….First time I’ve felt moved to write.
Trouble shared, sometimes trouble halved. So will try EASY setting.
Ryan says
I totally get it! Just what I needed today thank you Jon.
Glenn J says
Funny Stuff! Loved it!