THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 108

Every year or so when we were doing PORK I’d think about how I’d feel with the magazine if I was dead. This kept me looking at the content for timeless qualities plus kept things fresh & vital. This way of looking at the world & myself got baked in when I had a stroke, died & have spent a part of every day for years now meditating on these sorts of things. One of these introspective moments gave birth to “THE GOBLIN’S RULES OF THE GAME” where I just wrote down the lessons I had learned in life quickly (I think the original document took me a half hour). This was published initially as a part of my column in PORK, then as a poster. Katie put the poster up on my hospital room door when I had the stroke. Hospital staff, on reading it, were surprised that I had written it. This piece was obviously more important than just a bit of last-minute column filler & a poster. Adam Cardone devoted an entire episode of his Evening Hour show to breaking it down, extrapolating on each point & this pushed me over the edge to expand it on my own into a zine. Here are the rules.

THE GOBLIN’S RULES OF THE GAME 

1.Life is a game. There are rules but there are only unofficial Guidebooks written by the feeble minds of humans who do their damnedest to game the system. You can cheat & use a Guidebook, but remember that it’s unofficial & That nothing Can overshadow experience & Genuine skill. You will note that The guidebooks usually cost something.

2.You have to beat every level. There is no way to skip ahead, If you go too far ahead in the game all of the minor - Enemies & Mini-Bosses will come after you & You won’t know when they’ll Show up & In how many numbers! It’s better to be at the level You’re on thoroughly, Even trying it a few times to get comfortable with your new abilities.

3.Talk to everyone. You never know when the guy who is standIng mysteriously still by the rosebush will tell you about a new mission you have to go on. You never know when the Mexican ninja will reveal the secret of lemons against witchcraft & the mystery of the chakras. Not all of the missions are worth Pursuing, But you’ll figure that out through trial & error.

4. If the game is too easy, You’re not advancing. The processing of the human soul is difficult & the goal is to continue advancIng through experience & to take on each challenge correctly in order to refine our spiritual energy. 

5.The easiest answers have the hardest questions & In their simplicity the complexity of existence is revealed. But you have to be able to ask the question. Write down the rules as you

figure them out.

6. Avoidance stalls the game out.You can stop advancing in life & try to just stay in the same place, But the perpetual advancement of the universe will start throwing major obstacles &

Enemies in your way to get you out of that holding pattern. The Universe would rather kill you then have you stall out if you’re going to waste your life. Don’t waste your quarter.

7.The human mind only interprets what it perceives as reality. We do not know what reality is- But we feel reality intuitively. All expressions of reality are interpretations. Follow your nose.

8.People will try to tell you what the game is but they are Always wrong. They will create games inside of the game & Tell You that they have the game. They don’t. The game is different for every player. Games inside of the game are just games.

9. You are the final boss.  

These rules were written based on what I had learned up until that time. They should resonate with you but the problem I have with today is that people’s minds have been broken. This broken quality makes it so that universal truths don’t ring out, it’s like trying to give a cow wisdom. The cow just wants to eat grass.