Restart-level Button

Life Boat

 How many do overs do you get in life? How many chances does a person get to start again? Thinking in terms of a video game my mind wanders to the restart-level button almost inherent in every game made. A chance to start the level (the game) again. The option to abandon the progress you have fought to achieve and go back to a previously saved checkpoint and, begin again. The need to begin again is of course a direct result of meeting an insurmountable obstacle on your path. Failure and the feeling that if you started again you would be able to make it to point past this point and achieve far greater forward progress. It would seem the number of times possible would be infinite dependent upon how much effort you choose to devote to finishing that particular game. And how much are you willing to give up of the forward progress you have already made. Sometimes it involves not much of a backward motion. Other times it is a complete restart of the game. Everything gained previous, lost.

How many chances does a person get to start again? A difficult question to answer at first thought. Certainly after some pondering it becomes rather obvious that it is at the heart of it, a very simple answer. As many as you desire. Every second of every minute of very hour of every day, a person can choose to start again. Of course the effort to alter ones course is completely dependant upon the situation you find yourself in at that very moment of your life. Picture life being a great big ocean. Sometimes the life course you are on is akin to floating along in a rowboat on that ocean. Alone, with someone else, or with many. But lets speak in terms of one. You. Every stroke of the oar (or if you are lucky enough two oars) gives you a propel in a direction of your choosing. Almost at will an extension of your thoughts is directed to your arms, the paddle pushes against the resistance of the water and you move. Conversely a thought to stop your motion is as easily obtained, by means of not paddling or dragging the paddle in the water thus creating a braking condition. So in essence altering your course is as simple as making a thought to do so. Now let's take this concept and extrapolate it out to the size of an ocean liner. This being a metaphor for a much bigger involvement of a situation in your life. The same simplicity of changing your course is there. Just think it. Quite obviously the effort needed to carry out the same change of course would be so much greater. Think of a mighty ocean liner chugging along at top speed. You then decide to change course. The mechanics and physics involved and required are immensely greater. Yet it can still be done. Takes more time and effort but it can be done. Another choice in all of this is to just sit by and do nothing. So your boat just drifts. Wherever the waves take you. At times stuck between waves and just spinning in a circle. Say you are a passenger in that rowboat. Another person doing the rowing, choosing the direction, the speed, the course. You just passively ride along. To some this is the ideal type of life. The passenger. Never having to make decisions or put out effort. But to many being the passenger is an ultimately frustrating thing. Maybe at first it is fun because it is new, different from what you have experienced. In life the greatest thing you can find is another person ready, willing and able to sit beside you in that rowboat and man one of the oars. As great a concept of happiness that that may be it is also not the easiest shoe to fill. Regardless, you are a passenger in a rowboat with another rowing. Whether you had previous arrangements of a final destination or not you are moving in the same direction right at the moment. So maybe the best of intentions were made to continue in a particular direction but the ocean constantly pushed you off your course. As the passenger you sit and do nothing but live the life of a rider. As you ride you see things along the way. You observe the rower veering or straying off the supposed route. Sometimes you may witness another boat or boats flying by with what appears to be a much better time being had by the passengers on board, than the one of which you are travelling in. Based on things you see, you question whether the boat you are in is the right one. In time you may realize the boat you are on is going someplace that you wouldn't have chosen. Again, some don't care, they are just along for the ride. While others will stay the passive passenger and allow another to choose the course of their life. All the while feeling like something isn't right. Building resentment, a feeling of futile wasted energy in the wrong direction. In time a feeling comes for the need to change the direction of travel. This need builds and festers to the point it becomes overwhelming. This is where choices come into play. Stay the passenger and say or do nothing. Seemingly not a choice but in fact a definite choice. Next option would be something as simple as voicing your sentiments of the matter to the person manning the oars. The results of this would be tied directly to the persona's of the passenger and the oarsman. Could be very little effort required to make a change or could be something that leaves the boat still in the water, drifting whichever way the ocean currents take you while you hem and haw, argue about the direction and speed. Another choice somewhat more upsetting in nature would be grabbing the paddle(s) and overcoming the present direction and changing it to a course of your liking. Again this would have mixed results dependant upon the ideals of the characters involved, one unfortunate and not quite anticipated result could be the forced exit of one of the occupants from the boat. One other option would be to just jump the fuck out of the boat. Yeah that's pretty drastic, and most certainly not an easy choice to make. Giving up every bit of your dry, safe transport to enter into a wet, cold world of which you seemingly have nothing. Giving up all of your forward progress and going to a point previous in life, and starting again. History teaches that to abandon ship is like a last ditch effort to save yourself. The only possible remaining choice that one can make to alter their direction. Give up everything in the name of saving yourself. No guarantees that you will be saved or redirected to a better destination. At times feeling like a twig in a whirlpool. Nothing to stand on, just the hope that somebody will throw you a lifeline. A rescuer to come along that will pull you from the overwhelming feeling of being lost at sea. Be it the person from the boat of which you just jumped out of or another that may come drifting along and find you floating there. How strong must you be to refuse the helping hand of the person of which boat you just jumped from. Saying emphatically No! I will not get back into THAT boat. Cold alone in a vast ocean. Only the hope of another boat to come along. Maybe a big ocean liner or coast guard rescue boat, if it comes to that. The point is you do have a choice any second of any minute of any day to alter your course in this life. To think that for some, they would never have the will or desire to change anything. Just put up with the course in the name of not having to upset the balance in the boat or worst of all jumping into the water - giving up everything. To others the choice to always row alone. Never to have to worry about changing your course if you didn't want to. A lot more work to be sure. And lonely. For some a constant supply of partners to ride along with. Talk them into rowing with you then when you feel they can no longer be of use, throw them overboard and replace with a new fresh set of arms. This choice would at some point have undesired results as well. For when you finally get tired of rowing and would like to rely on another, none will want to get in your boat and assist. As mentioned earlier, the happiest arrangement is finding that one other person that you can sit beside and row through the ocean of life to a common destination with. Both people rowing together altering course as needed and desired as a team. Times when one just couldn't row the other picking up the slack. And if at times it gets to be too much for either rower to handle and they mistakenly jump overboard, to know that that boat would circle around and you would find that outstretched helping hand ready, willing and able to pull you back into the boat. And you wanting to be pulled in. How fucking awesome! The ocean in a sense becomes a stream. And you just rowing your boat gently down the stream.

A constant restart-level button or never the need for one. Depends how you look at it. Wherein as much as having a restart-level button in life seems like such a far fetched idea it would appear that it not be to far off from reality. As in the video game world they aren't found easily and certainly you have to make some amount of forward progress to see them. They are there disguised and hidden in the choices that we make. Every second of every minute of every day.

 Row row row your boat gently down the stream.