Game Over.

We say letting go instead of giving up to provide the illusion of control. So afraid of defeat, we pretend we have a choice. But sometimes, we simply don't. The cards face-up on the table, our choices at an end, this is the place where we have lost.

Our dreams bleed American, tinged the red-white-blue of competitive individualism, Puritanical roots that crave work like alcohol, because work means success and success means better than. The most toys wins, only choose your brand name: career, marriage, academic standing, house square-footage, community volunteer hours--we are all collecting, our own marks of significance.

We use different coins, but we stack them up just the same. These are our towers to heaven, we build and babble like idiots. Stack stone upon stone, but there is no one left to live there. Our castles stand, beautiful and empty and waiting to rot.

If we are lucky, the castles will fall in time for us to realize the game is up. Did you know that it's okay to lose? That flash across the screen, GAME OVER, in bright red.

Thank God. I'm so sick of playing games. Outside these walls, life is waiting to be lived.