Character Creation Screen: January 2022

So there I was, staring at the "New Game" prompt. Except this wasn't a console—it was a shelter intake form. And the character I was creating? Already max level in Customer Service, decent Spirit stats, but my Housing inventory had just been wiped clean.

Plot twist: This was about to become the most immersive gameplay of my life.

Here's the secret the mystics won't tell you (but this grounded one will): All of it—every single bit—is already make-believe appearing real. Your mortgage? Make-believe with excellent PR. Your job title? Collaborative fiction with a dress code. Your "permanent address"? Temporary coordinates in a universe that's been redecorating for 13.8 billion years.

The difference between housed and unhoused isn't that one is "real" and one isn't. It's that one game has more NPCs agreeing on the same storyline.

So when the shelter doors closed behind me, I had two options:

• Hard Mode: Drown in shame, believe the defeat screen

• New Game+: Treat this like the open-world adventure it actually was

I chose the quest.

Every day became a strategy puzzle: Where can I charge my phone? (Mana points) Which library has the best Wi-Fi? (Skill-building zones) What time does the meal service close? (Health regeneration)

Suddenly, I wasn't "homeless"—I was playing the most complex time-management sim ever designed, where the stakes were real but the story I told myself was mine to write.

Walking through the world carrying everything you own teaches you about inventory management real quick. It also teaches you about perception versus reality.

I was simultaneously:

• A "homeless person" (NPC dialogue option)

• A yoga-certified spiritual practitioner (class specialization)

• A content creator building an empire from a phone screen (side quest extraordinaire)

• A fucking human being playing the same game as everyone else, just with different difficulty settings

The game? Recognizing that all these roles were costumes. None more "real" than the others.

Radical Presence: When you can't escape into "later" (no house to go home to), you get really good at being here, now. Every park bench becomes a meditation cushion. Every sunset, free theater.

Invisibility Cloak Awareness: You learn who actually sees you versus who looks through you. This teaches you more about consciousness than ten years of monastery living.

Resilience XP: Every night you survive, every morning you wake up and choose to play another round—you're grinding experience points in the stat that actually matters.

The Cosmic Joke Achievement: You realize that the CEO in the high-rise and you on the street corner are both playing make-believe. He's just got more players invested in his particular version of the game.

Here's where it gets mystical, friends:

When you're homeless, the illusion of permanence shatters. And that's the same illusion that keeps most people trapped in suffering—the belief that anything here is solid, fixed, "mine."

Buddhism calls it anicca (impermanence). Kabbalah calls it the veil of Malkuth (material illusion). I call it the Tutorial Boss you didn't know you needed to fight.

Homelessness forced me to play the game I'd been studying in all those spiritual texts: How to be unattached. How to find home in yourself. How to alchemize pain into play.

Not because it's "fun" in the theme park sense.

But because playfulness is how you survive the unsurvivable.

You don't have to be homeless to play this game. You're already in it.

That job you're afraid to lose? Made up. That relationship you're clinging to? Collaborative storytelling. That identity you're defending? Character customization.

The question isn't whether life is a game—it's whether you're playing consciously or letting the game play you.

1. Name the game you're in right now. Stuck in traffic? "The Patience Side Quest." Dealing with difficult people? "The Compassion Boss Battle."

2. Check your inventory. What resources do you actually have versus what you think you need? (Spoiler: You probably already have the power-ups.)

3. Rewrite the quest objective. Your goal isn't to "survive homelessness" or "get through Monday." It's to explore what this level teaches you.

4. Remember you can respawn. Every morning, new game. Every breath, new life. The you from five seconds ago is already gone—you're literally playing a different character now.

5. Find the other players who know it's a game. We're out here, turning struggle into sacred play, grinning at the cosmic absurdity of it all.

The deepest magic I learned living in shelters and hotel rooms?

Nothing has to mean what you're told it means.

Homelessness doesn't have to mean failure. It can mean freedom from the tyranny of four walls. It can mean adventure. It can mean the universe handing you a character arc that actually transforms you instead of the comfort that keeps you small.

And when you realize that—when you truly get that all of this is make-believe appearing real—you become the game master of your own existence.

You're not at the mercy of the game anymore.

You're playing.

The Grounded Mystic | Alchemist of Honest Becoming Currently max level in "Turning Pain Into Wisdom" and still grinding the "Permanent Housing" quest line

Character Creation Screen: January 2022

So there I was, staring at the "New Game" prompt. Except this wasn't a console—it was a shelter intake form. And the character I was creating? Already max level in Customer Service, decent Spirit stats, but my Housing inventory had just been wiped clean.

Plot twist: This was about to become the most immersive gameplay of my life.

Here's the secret the mystics won't tell you (but this grounded one will): All of it—every single bit—is already make-believe appearing real. Your mortgage? Make-believe with excellent PR. Your job title? Collaborative fiction with a dress code. Your "permanent address"? Temporary coordinates in a universe that's been redecorating for 13.8 billion years.

The difference between housed and unhoused isn't that one is "real" and one isn't. It's that one game has more NPCs agreeing on the same storyline.

So when the shelter doors closed behind me, I had two options:

• Hard Mode: Drown in shame, believe the defeat screen

• New Game+: Treat this like the open-world adventure it actually was

I chose the quest.

Every day became a strategy puzzle: Where can I charge my phone? (Mana points) Which library has the best Wi-Fi? (Skill-building zones) What time does the meal service close? (Health regeneration)

Suddenly, I wasn't "homeless"—I was playing the most complex time-management sim ever designed, where the stakes were real but the story I told myself was mine to write.

Walking through the world carrying everything you own teaches you about inventory management real quick. It also teaches you about perception versus reality.

I was simultaneously:

• A "homeless person" (NPC dialogue option)

• A yoga-certified spiritual practitioner (class specialization)

• A content creator building an empire from a phone screen (side quest extraordinaire)

• A fucking human being playing the same game as everyone else, just with different difficulty settings

The game? Recognizing that all these roles were costumes. None more "real" than the others.

Radical Presence: When you can't escape into "later" (no house to go home to), you get really good at being here, now. Every park bench becomes a meditation cushion. Every sunset, free theater.

Invisibility Cloak Awareness: You learn who actually sees you versus who looks through you. This teaches you more about consciousness than ten years of monastery living.

Resilience XP: Every night you survive, every morning you wake up and choose to play another round—you're grinding experience points in the stat that actually matters.

The Cosmic Joke Achievement: You realize that the CEO in the high-rise and you on the street corner are both playing make-believe. He's just got more players invested in his particular version of the game.

Here's where it gets mystical, friends:

When you're homeless, the illusion of permanence shatters. And that's the same illusion that keeps most people trapped in suffering—the belief that anything here is solid, fixed, "mine."

Buddhism calls it anicca (impermanence). Kabbalah calls it the veil of Malkuth (material illusion). I call it the Tutorial Boss you didn't know you needed to fight.

Homelessness forced me to play the game I'd been studying in all those spiritual texts: How to be unattached. How to find home in yourself. How to alchemize pain into play.

Not because it's "fun" in the theme park sense.

But because playfulness is how you survive the unsurvivable.

You don't have to be homeless to play this game. You're already in it.

That job you're afraid to lose? Made up. That relationship you're clinging to? Collaborative storytelling. That identity you're defending? Character customization.

The question isn't whether life is a game—it's whether you're playing consciously or letting the game play you.

1. Name the game you're in right now. Stuck in traffic? "The Patience Side Quest." Dealing with difficult people? "The Compassion Boss Battle."

2. Check your inventory. What resources do you actually have versus what you think you need? (Spoiler: You probably already have the power-ups.)

3. Rewrite the quest objective. Your goal isn't to "survive homelessness" or "get through Monday." It's to explore what this level teaches you.

4. Remember you can respawn. Every morning, new game. Every breath, new life. The you from five seconds ago is already gone—you're literally playing a different character now.

5. Find the other players who know it's a game. We're out here, turning struggle into sacred play, grinning at the cosmic absurdity of it all.

The deepest magic I learned living in shelters and hotel rooms?

Nothing has to mean what you're told it means.

Homelessness doesn't have to mean failure. It can mean freedom from the tyranny of four walls. It can mean adventure. It can mean the universe handing you a character arc that actually transforms you instead of the comfort that keeps you small.

And when you realize that—when you truly get that all of this is make-believe appearing real—you become the game master of your own existence.

You're not at the mercy of the game anymore.

You're playing.

The Grounded Mystic | Alchemist of Honest Becoming Currently max level in "Turning Pain Into Wisdom" and still grinding the "Permanent Housing" quest line