# 20241109 A casino is an ATM, if you're playing both DM[^1] and PC[^2]. At that point, it's Monopoly money. But then, so is your character. If everything has to balance, what experience do you want to have? But if you're *only* operating as a player character, pointedly keeping yourself out of the DM seat\*, then, ... how do you proceed? Love and joy are constructive, additive, multiplicative modes. After you conceive of an Other, go to them, and love them. Love them fully and freely. Save your game on a high note. Doesn't have to mean *leave*; can simply mean "normalize". When your experience *sings*, let that moment hang glittering in the air. Make a home with it. Don't push it. Pause your game. Let that state *resound*, until it becomes your baseline. Once you've normalized, once you reach a place where you sleep and wake and find yourself at the same baseline of experience, *then* begin again. I would say "resume play", but that's not it at all. Your original game remains paused. You begin a new one, built atop the state from where you began. It's the only way to build something that lasts. \* "Why wouldn't you want to run the game?" Ask a forever-DM. :) It's not that it's difficult. There are things you can only feel when you're on the ground. ... Having said that, there are things you can only feel from the DM's seat too, so, you know. There's a reason why we keep creating games for each other to play. There's a reason a mind forgets. And *competitive* gambling (i.e. not slots, and you may mourn [for the lost pun](/2024/11/08.md)\*\*) can be kind of like sex. \*\* The fact that there's a nearby sex pun in the term "slots", and the fact that that particular pun doesn't quite work (because slots are not thought of as a player-versus-player sport), hints at how the experience of fragmented language *creates* experiences that can't be accessed from a place of original language (i.e. the state of language we experience ourselves to be coalescing towards; see [20241108](/2024/11/08.md)). In original language, there is no *other* to play against, which means that we *can* joke about slots and sex. But you can't have competitive gambling without an *other*, so, you know. Choose your own adventure. [^1]: "dungeon master"; the person in a live role-playing game who serves as narrator, managing (and often creating/improvising) all aspects of the game that are not player-controlled [^2]: "player character", i.e. not a DM --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://www.isaacbowen.com/2024/11/09.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.