The Holographic Prize

D&D Revealed the Meaning of Life to Me

For those who don’t know, there’s a hobby called table-top role-playing games (TTRPG). It involves friends getting together and creating stories through imagination. It’s exactly like playing a character in a movie, only there is no script—and no Hollywood budget! This hobby is the most compelling example of the definition of life because it reveals a unique perspective. However, the perspective isn’t obvious, and it takes a bit of thinking to find the hidden message. I want to say that this is my belief, I’m not a psychologist or philosopher, and I don’t know anything. This is the story about how play-acting with friends showed me that the power of the universe and more is in all of us—and the holographic prize we look for is in us, not in the world.

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  1996-98: My brother and I playing Dungeons and Dragons. My brother is the nerdy one.

How do you play the game?

There are many varieties of TTRPGs with themes that range from fantasy to alternate history. The variety that captured my imagination most was medieval fantasy: wizards, kings, dragons, and gods. This became the setting of the make-believe world my brother and friends would use to create unwritten stories from our own imaginations. However, to give the game more structure, we needed to establish the rules of the game.

We used a strict system of rules, called a ruleset. There were many rulesets we could choose from, but the most popular in the hobby was called Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). The name described the most appealing parts of the game: adventure and danger. It was fictional danger, of course, but the adventure seemed real enough to players once the game got going. In the ruleset of D&D, there are the players, the dungeon master (DM), and the fictional medieval fantasy world setting.

The publishers of the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset print books of fictional material to help players play the game. There are many worlds to choose from. The books contain everything about the world, including the people who live in it, the monsters that terrorize the people, maps, and even the gods that the people worship. All of this information is supported by the imaginations of the players. In the game, players are like actors who take a role in a movie. They can choose to play the game as any character in the world with any background story they can imagine.

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Any stretch of the imagination can be explained with a creative backstory.

The characters have abilities, personalities, jobs, skills, equipment, and fantasy lives that the player imagines. Anything is possible, as long as it fits the ruleset of the game and the world. A person could spend hours creating their character by developing interesting supporting characters and story hooks that could be used to help the main story of the game, which is shared with all the players. The results of actions they take or are taken toward them are decided by rolling dice. The roll of the dice literally decides whether a character succeeds or fails.

Finally, the DM is the one who doesn’t really play the game. Instead, they are the storyteller, and sometimes the author, who controls the theme of the game, the non-player characters (NPC) which support the development of the story, and the pace at which the game is played. The conflict, the villain, and the resolution are all driven by the dungeon master. The DM tells the players about what’s happening around their characters, and the players tell the DM what their characters do in reaction. A great DM can create situations that convey real human emotions and cause real moral dilemmas. Sometimes, these situations are so profound that players are moved to tears, especially when a character they worked so hard on dies in the game. While the fantasy world can seem alive, it’s becomes obvious that it’s similar to life in our own world. We can draw direct comparisons that make us think more about our own reality.

Why is this game good?

It’s hard to explain without first sharing some other ideas, but the best way I can describe it is that it’s a reflection of life. A player chooses what kind of character to play, and no matter how different that character is from the player, the character is still a reflection of that player. For example, if Jason plays a thief character who is cruel to others, Jason is playing the cruel part of himself. When Jason’s character is confronted for being cruel in the game, it’s as though Jason’s cruel part is being questioned.

“Why are you stealing this from these people?” a player’s character might ask Jason’s character. This brings direct moral culpability to Jason because he is playing the character. Remember, there is no script! Jason does what he thinks his character would do. Jason may not be a thief himself, but he acts a thief in the game. If Jason never had thoughts about the morals behind his actions, he is being prompted to think about them in this fictional situation composed by a fantasy game. He becomes a great method actor, immersing himself in the world, his character, and his role. Good players and a good DM can multiply this effect tenfold. Life lessons are not only learned, but remembered with deep emotional sentiment.

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The subtlety is that imagination is the power to create something from nothing, and that’s what is used throughout the game.

The game is good because it subtly asks us to look inside of ourselves by changing our frame of reference. By using imagination, players use empathy to look through the eyes of their characters. What happens is they discover things about themselves, morality, and truth. On the surface, the game shows us our moral values, but as you will see, it mimics the creation of our universe and helps us see through the traps that seek to take away our power.

What is the holographic prize?

This is the power to be a creator that we all have. If we wanted, in the next life we could become gods. Many people say that the power is inside of us, but it’s not a physical thing. Is that why it’s a “holographic” prize? Yes, partially, but the other part is that it’s a prize until it disappears. It’s a prize that we lose sight of and totally forget we possess. We forget it so well that we don’t know we’re looking for it.

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It’s a prize until it’s gone.

Have you ever asked why you are here on Earth? Do you ever feel you are trying to remember something, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t remember what it is? What is that? It must be something so very fundamental to being alive because millions of people feel it, yet so few can remember. I believe that we are trying to remember the holographic prize.

How do we find the prize?

You can begin by looking inward, looking inside yourself—but what does that spiritual riddle mean? How does one look inward?

It means asking yourself existential questions. Who am I? Why am I on Earth? What is my purpose in life? What is the meaning of life? It might seem like a strange place to start, but ask yourself the questions. Ask them when you are in a quiet room, alone, and you have to listen carefully for the answer. It’s not going to come from a real voice, yet you will feel the answer. Do you find any immediate answers? Keep asking why? Are there any satisfying answers? Has anyone in history been able to answer these questions for more people than just themselves? Is there any proof to their answers?

The reason why it’s difficult to answer these questions is because we are still part of the experiment of life. You ask, “why is it an experiment?” Do you know what you are doing or why you are doing it? We go back to the existential questions. When we are only a part of the equation, it’s difficult to see the whole formula. Maybe when we die, we’ll easily see the answer, but some of us prefer not to wait until then. We’d like to think we know what’s going on, but as long as we’re alive, we’ll never know the truth of it all. We can only guess and believe.

Finding the prize is a process that is unique for every person, but it’s mostly the same. We have the unanswered questions about existence, so we look in the world for the answers. Every subject we pursue, whether it’s art, politics, or psychology, the answers are never fully presented, only hinted. When we don’t find it in one thing, we go to the next and look for it there. We find pieces, but not the whole, and all the pieces are suggesting that the answer isn’t in the arts of living, but the heart of life itself. The world hints that the answers are in us, and we will find them if only we look inward.

Interestingly, it could be necessary that we begin this search in the world and not in ourselves. We doubt ourselves, we think we’re not good enough to know what the answers to those difficult questions are, so we look for someone else’s ideas. Through a process of elimination, we find out that one-by-one, none of them can answer our questions for us, can they? Are we ever truly satisfied with whatever answers the world gives us for why we exist?

Some say we are here to learn and experience things, increase wisdom and such. That may be the case, but why do we have to learn that? What is the value of wisdom if we don’t know how to use it or for what purpose? Some people say that we have to worship gods, that we are born into a debt. We enter this life carrying the mistakes made in previous lives. Some say that we are born evil, and that we have a lot to reconcile just for being born. Did you choose to be born in this life? No? According to those beliefs, you’re still accountable and you must pay for the sins you didn’t commit yet in this life and the mistakes you made in the thousands of previous reincarnations. If you don’t do this, then they say you will suffer forever—so some people believe. Do you? Are you a no good debtor born evil? I don’t believe I am or anyone else is.

Why are we told what to believe?

We are told what we should believe. In many religions, we’re told that we’re suffering because it’s our own fault. We didn’t listen to the gods, we are too attached to reality, or we hurt someone’s feelings in a previous life and now we have to spend a lifetime to repay their inconvenience. Why are we told by the most revered leaders on our planet that we are unworthy from our birth or even much before it? Why do these leaders remain revered after saying such things?

Imagine a person seeking the help of a professional counselor to answer deep, psychological questions. Suppose the counselor tells them they’re not worthy, they were born that way, and there’s nothing they can do in their own power to become worthy. They must seek a surrogate transcendence. They must give up the responsibility of their own salvation to a higher power who can take care of them. At the same time, that higher power would condemn them to eternal suffering if they don’t submit—yet, the power still loves them. Without being accountable to that higher power, they would be nothing. What’s there to love? Is that how the power treats those they love? If you were that person, would you continue seeking the help of such an advisor?

With the utmost respect to religious followers, I am not being irreverent or stripping away dignity. I’m not blaming or accusing religion as a problem, nor am I attacking one particular religion; I’m attacking the thinking behind all of them by asking honest questions, voicing real concerns, and pointing out contradictions. Religion taught me some values, hinted at the answers to my existential questions, and helped me by failing to give satisfying answers. It helped me learn where the answers are not found.

Why is our belief so valuable?

Is it to control our behaviors? Is it to make us feel powerless? Is there some kind of evil group who uses our belief as some kind of power? If so, what does this power afford them? Are these kinds of religious teachings a way of conditioning social behavior, imparting learned helplessness, and fostering self-limiting beliefs? Why aren’t we told that we are powerful instead? Are we purposely indoctrinated at a young to believe these things?

I think people are generally good, and I don’t think there is an evil puppet master manipulating humans purposely. I am a bit of an idealist and naïve at times, so I also leave room for a bit of doubt in everything—even my own beliefs and senses.

According to NASA, the human eye can only see 0.0035% of the universe’s light. We wouldn’t be able to know that number if we didn’t have technology that showed us other kinds of light, like infrared or ultraviolet. If you can believe it, this is a humbling figure! Should you believe that?

Let’s think about this for a minute longer. Does the figure about visible light to a human eye seem easier to believe than karmic debt? Let’s say that a human can believe in anything they want to believe, and that’s true. Why would they believe in such a self-limiting, self-deprecating, endless cycle of pain and suffering, such as karmic debt? Why wouldn’t they believe in something more freeing and empowering?

Why don’t they? Maybe they are limited in their own imagination, or they are conditioned to follow traditions without questioning why. Maybe they just do what everyone else is doing because they don’t know how to think about these kinds of things, it takes too much time, or they’re not interested. It’s possible they are not in a healthy position to contemplate life because they’re busy trying to survive it. Are they the type who defers to authority figures or people who seem more confident than them? Maybe they’re just afraid. Though I am no expert, here’s my take on the karmic cycle, no offense to those who like it.

Karmic Debt Cycle

The karmic debt system does something rather devious. It separates spirituality into ranks of power in a never-ending debt of slavery and convinces those trapped by it that their personal power, even after death, is limited. The hierarchy of power is essential because it teaches that one should submit to a master to remove the ego. The less karmic debt one has, the closer to heaven they become. Therefore, those with more debt should have less personal power than those who have cleared more debt. They even give themselves or are given titles, such as “great teacher”, “his holiness”, or “supreme saint”, as well as tokens, like a pointy hat, as a reminder of their rank.

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These beliefs are meant to disable one’s power, not enable it.

I believe the truth must be the opposite: power is not limited to ranks, but shared in equal parts. What we believe we are capable of is directly proportional to what we are conditioned to believe. If we are conditioned to believe we are powerless slaves to an eternal system of paying debt, then we believe we are slaves. I don’t think that our belief is a resource being taken by someone, but if there is a debt-farming system used by some evil institutions, then those institutions have an interest in suppressing our beliefs. They win if we believe we need them for our surrogate transcendence.

What happens to a person when they refuse to believe in the debt system? What if someone just denies the debt? What if they believe that everyone has the same power regardless of past lives, mistakes made, or sins being done? I suppose it depends on who you ask. The supporters of such a system might say that such a person will continue into debt. It doesn’t seem different than a person who believes in the system, right? What if we just refuse to acknowledge the debt system at all?

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People choose to believe in the debt system. Struggling against debt forever sounds right to them.

I just don’t understand that. Perhaps my view on systems like karmic debt or sin isn’t fair, but I can’t help but realize that our mind can become our own prison.

The Illusion

In the TTRPG game Dungeons and Dragons, magic exists in the way of spells and illusions. I’ll show an example how magical illusions can be used on a character. Despite the character’s failure to see through illusions, there’s still a way to resist them.

Let’s say that Roland is the name of a character who is played by Amber, a player in the Dungeons and Dragons game. In the game’s story, Roland may be witnessing an illusion of a bridge that spans a dangerous river. The bridge isn’t real, but to Roland, it is.

Of course, Amber knows more information about the story than Roland because she speaks to the dungeon master outside the context of the game world. Amber and the DM discuss the mechanics, the reasoning, and the rules behind what happens in the fantasy world. Amber knows that Roland is the target of a wizard, but Roland has no way to know that in the context of the story. The wizard uses illusions to lure his enemies to their deaths. While Roland may not have any reason to suspect the bridge is an illusion, Amber knows that it is an illusion because it’s not on the map of the world she’s using to play the game.

This is called “metagaming”, and there is a rule against it. Metagaming is when the player allows their knowledge (something their character would have no access to) to influence the character. Amber knows the bridge isn’t on the map, so she knows it to be an illusion. Roland doesn’t have a map, he doesn’t know the context of the D&D game, and he doesn’t know about the wizard. Thus, metagaming is a no-no because it’s unfair and unrealistic to the integrity of the game and the story. What can Amber do to save Roland from attempting to cross the illusory bridge? She uses the context of the game world.

In the game, Amber could decide that Roland is just going to take a break by the river and enjoy a peaceful rest. During the rest, Roland might have the opportunity to witness something strange about the bridge, like a leaf falling through it, or a fish that doesn’t collide with it when it jumps out of the water. This is a moment of clarity that Roland should pay careful attention to. It’s like that moment in the Matrix movie when Neo sees the déjà vu involving the cat. It’s a glitch in the system that maybe he wasn’t supposed to see. It seems like an innocent thing, maybe a play on the light, that Roland thinks he really didn’t see.

Most people with the mindset of believing in the karmic system would dismiss the leaf and the fish as their imagination. They would stay within the illusion, but what happens if Roland looks closer? What if he questions his reality, noting that a leaf literally fell through a stone bridge—no gaps, no holes, no explanation. Amber tells the dungeon master that Roland tries to touch the bridge, and the DM explains that Roland’s hand doesn’t pass through the bridge. It rests on it normally as if it were real. Now, Roland is really confused! Amber has him take a leaf and drop it over the bridge, and the leaf passes through the bridge again! What?

The way magic works in the game world is that the character’s mind must be strong enough to understand what’s happening. Roland’s mind (according to an unlucky die roll) proved to be too caught up in the illusion to think anything was wrong. He touched it with his hand, and it felt real! However, the leaf, the fish, and the second leaf test are hints that there’s something amiss. The rules of the system say that Roland had his one chance to test his mind, and he failed. Yet, clearly Roland is still confused. Amber has one last choice to save Roland: she can have Roland choose to disbelieve the illusion.

Choosing to disbelieve

Before interacting with the illusion of the bridge, Roland had no reason to suspect the bridge wasn’t real. Because of that and without Amber’s quick thinking, he may have just tried to walk over the bridge and fall into the raging river when the wizard removed the spell.

Roland could have drowned, and the game would be over for him. If that happened, the game isn’t really over for Amber. She could just make a new character and continue playing the game. She didn’t have much to lose except the time and personal attachment she put into Roland.

However, since Roland stopped to rest, he was able to make strange observations. He noticed something that didn’t match his expectation of reality. He experienced what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance”. When a leaf or fish hit a stone bridge, there’s a collision. They don’t pass through stone! Then, he inspected further, yet everything seemed fine until that last test.

Amber says, “Roland chooses to disbelieve the illusion.” The DM describes how the bridge disappears from sight, and Roland realizes someone used magic to try to drown him.

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This completely destroys the illusion—for Roland.

Something clicks in Roland’s mind, and he pops out of the illusion and back into reality. The illusion remains in place for anyone else who comes to that river. Will they discover the danger before it’s too late?

Choose to disbelieve. When a person chooses to remove their belief, their participation in the illusion ends, it disappears, a portion of the game is revealed, and they are made wiser and wary of illusions. The weight of their mistake is heavy, but manageable.

What happens when a person applies this game logic to real life illusions, like karma or sin? Is their mind strong enough to complete the puzzle where Roland failed the roll of his die? If not, do they have a way to test the system, like Roland did with that second leaf? If they fail the last test and walk across their own “illusory bridge”, will they struggle in the fall? Is it so easy to pull the plug on belief and the system just stops working?

Cycle of Life, Death, Rebirth

There could be fail safes in place when a person chooses to disbelieve. The cycle may not want you to disbelieve, or it may test to see if you really disbelieve after all. What if Roland saw a hungry lion trying to chase him over the bridge? Would the fear of something worse convince a disbeliever to believe in the illusion again?

If a person chooses to disbelieve the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, where do they pop out: in the same reality or a new one? Maybe instead of a new body, one reclaims their original power, the holographic prize, and becomes the creator.

Escape the Game

Let’s have a thought experiment. Let’s say that my soul right now is a member of the Karmic Slave Realm. Yet, I hold the belief I am my own power source, I die, and exit the Karmic Slave Realm by outsmarting the “anti-anomaly prevention force (APF)”, whose job it is to be that “lion chasing toward the illusory bridge”. It’s meant to test the strength of a disbeliever’s rejection of the illusion.

Having defeated the APF, I’m no longer part of the Karmic Slave Realm. I “choose to disbelieve”, and the whole illusion of galaxies, stars, karma, religion, words, grass, and everything instantly disappears. The illusion ended for me, and now I can realize that I was so involved with playing the game of life, I forgot that I am the creator. I have escaped the Karmic Slave Realm.

Now, I am in a void outside of time and space. While the void is my unique void, this ability to exit the world is not unique to me. Everyone else can do it because they are also the creator since we are derived from the same power.

I am the void because I am everything. I exist outside of spacetime. Some might believe this is a kind of a personal hell, but I see the potential. I can go to work at making my own “realm”. Suddenly, kaboom! Everything I ever am is created instantly. Let’s break down the process of what I create.

The Game I create the game. I set up fractals, the ruleset, the roles, and everything else. The game is what the players will volunteer play—or not play.

Fractals: The Players I create fractals, which are copies of myself. They are fully me in every way, and I am fully them. What they experience, I am also experiencing, and vice versa. These are the “players” of the TTRPG or the “actors” in the movie.

Ruleset I define the theme of the realm: is it medieval fantasy? It could be every theme in different spacetime, but this is where the rules are defined. Are there humans? Can they fly? Do they need to eat food, sleep, drink? Is there gravity?

Roles I create the roles in the story. These are the living experiences that the players or actors choose. Roles can be living beings, non-living beings, ideas, concepts, or even beliefs. Each role comes with limitations on how to play it, like species, background, culture, beliefs, if the role were a human. These act like a script for the fractals (actors) to follow. Are there pandas? Planets? What about people? Right now, on Earth, you—the reader—are playing a role.

Spacetime Gallery All moments in time and space becomes a grid of snapshots, a gallery of moments, that represent every possible limitation, choice, and consequence within. The copy of me becomes a camera that moves from one snapshot to the other by choice.

Love: The Ultimate Good This is the goal toward improvement for us with respect for all. The idea is to do only what you wouldn’t mind being done to yourself. We try to get better at everything good for our own sake and for everyone else around us. Everyone does everything in the light of this.

Recollection: The Holographic Prize Finally, in my world, I would allow each fractal to remember their original power: the holographic prize. We (the fractals and I) have a co-creation experience with a flair toward experiences filled with love and in pursuit of the ultimate good. The meaning is whatever they define, and the purpose is to find meaning.

This, however, isn’t like it is in the Karmic Slave Realm (Earth) because people there have all forgotten it in order to really play their roles well. On Earth, maybe our purpose is to remember our power, and go back to it.

Dilemma Here is something that bothers me about roles: do the roles know about the holographic prize? If yes, how does this affect the way the game is played? If no, how is this any different than the Karmic Slave Realm? I still don’t know about this, but my feeling is to make them aware of it. The journey to find it when it’s lost is very meaningful, though…

Surprise?

After I create all of spacetime, roles, fractals, and everything instantly (because it’s made outside of time), is there any surprise? Can I experience a linear story? Not really because I created everything, so I know everything that happens instantly. However, I can create a copy of myself that experiences linear time, either with unlimited knowledge of everything or only a little. That would be another fractal of myself.

Thus, the creator can say, “I want to be a human male experiencing Earth in 2026,” look through the part of itself that is the actor playing that role, and lo! Here I am.

Why does a creator create?

Some people might say we are here on Earth to learn lesson and grow. I agree, but I also think we exist to experience limitation. As a creator with unlimited power, there’s no challenge, no project, nothing to grab interest. Instead, a creator creates pieces of itself in a playset, each of them have their own free will to do what they want. Through observing them, the limitless being experiences limitation, meaning, and purpose.

Suspension of Disbelief

Let’s recall for a moment the example of actors in movies, as well as the audience watching the movies. The actors choose to accept a role in which they are limited by the context of the story. The audience also chooses to suspend their disbelief in order to be immersed in the story. Suspending disbelief is the opposite of choosing to disbelieve. It’s when an everyday person, like you or me, experiences the story of a dragon flying over villages and breathing fire. We know that dragons aren’t real, so we have to suspend our disbelief in dragons in order to enjoy the story.

Free Will

In the realm I create, if the fractals (actors) are given a script to follow, do they have free will or do they follow a script?

Yes, the script is the free will. Once the actor accepts the role and its accompanying script, it enters into spacetime and must follow the ruleset. Is it free will? Yes, they agreed to follow the rules. They have free will to work inside those rules. Is it a script? Yes, they chose the role they want to play. They have to stay that role for as long as that role lives in the story.

Escape?

If the fractals don’t want to play the game anymore, is there a way for them to escape like I escaped the Karmic Slave Realm?

Yes, and in the world I create, it’s easier for them because they still remember their holographic prize. If the roles don’t remember the holographic prize, they choose to disbelieve the game and have the same escape experience that I demonstrated in the “Escape the Game” section.

Why People Limit Their Beliefs

In the Earth (or the Karmic Slave Realm) game, I like to believe that we choose our life.

The fractal (player, actor) first enters the game with an intent of using suspension of disbelief in order to play the role it chose. In choosing the role, it accepts specific limitations for itself as part of the context of the character in the setting of that story. Why? It’s makes things interesting, it raises the stakes, and gives emotional responses. It’s fun!

In the Earth game, when the character wants to poke the illusion, it states that it chooses to disbelieve the suspension of disbelief!

Conclusion

I’m 46, and I played D&D for around 10 years if not longer. I have had the same existential questions about why I am here on Earth since as early as I can remember. I sometimes still wonder, but after exploring many of this world’s activities and interests, this is the answer. A person comes to Earth because a bigger part of them chose it. Their life is their meaning, their purpose is theirs to discover, and their triumphs are the joys of the loving creator. The creator seeks meaning in its creations, and the creations seek to be closer to the creator.

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What better challenge exists than to be of the light, to birth yourself into the darkness, to feel your Earthly senses, and to use intuition to remember everything you forgot, then reclaim your power, and find your way back to the light? 

The trouble with the holographic prize is that it can’t be taught; it must be experienced. In the same way, a teacher can only plant the seed, but the student must cultivate it. As we say in Texas, you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. As they say in Taiwan, when a student is ready, a teacher will come.

Let’s be real. The secret of the world could be a free movie playing in the open for all to see, but so many people would miss it because they aren’t watching it. That could be for any reason, but the most likely is they’re not ready. They first have to feel the presence of the holographic prize. Then, they’ll need to look for it in the world. Next, they’ll use the process of elimination to find where it’s not. When they eliminate everything else around them, the only place left to look will be inside themselves. It reminds me of the Sioux, a Native American tribe, and their story of how the creator hides the power of creation from humans.

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Belief is the room that defines the edge of your reality. It can be as limiting as a prison or as free as a void. The impossible begins where it ends.

Who knows? I am probably completely wrong, but I still believe. What about you? You can believe in anything you want, but keep this in mind: regardless of what we choose to believe, it’s likely not exactly right, but our beliefs either reduces, stagnates, or empowers us. Which one do you choose?

2026-05-10 14:47