Life and Level Caps

What is the meaning of life? Nobody will ever be able to definitively tell you. A lot of people will try. Sometimes you should listen. Sometimes you shouldn’t.

Maybe the meaning of life is as simple and corny as all the self-help books say. The point is to just keep living and get better as you go along. Maybe life is like an open world role-playing video game. There is no explicit goal to achieve. You don’t ever really win. But you run around and do stuff until you level up. I guess that would be the goal, then. The meaning of life is to level up. When you are young, this is easy. As you get older, and your level increases, it becomes more difficult to advance.

When you are a kid, it is easy to level up. Everything you do is for the first time. First time going to school, first time going to work. You get massive XP boosts for simple things, like brushing your teeth or combing your hair. There are lots of new things to try when you are a kid, and most of them are easy. Plus, there is special incentive to level up. There are areas you can’t access until you are advanced enough. Areas everyone says are the best.

As you get older, and your skills increase, it takes more for you to level up. It takes longer and longer to reach the next level. You need more XP to go from level nine to level 10 than you needed to go from level eight to level nine.

At this point in your life, you are able to rack in XP from all kinds of different sources. But the next level begins to seem so far away. Will you ever even get there? Should you even try? Why struggle to gain experience if you already have all the gear you want, and are already more powerful than all your friends?

A lot of games have a level-cap. A maximum amount of skill and experience you can gain. This means you have done everything. Real life has no such cap. People are free to keep leveling up until the bitter end. A lot of us don’t, but all of us could.

So, should you reach a level you are comfortable with and be happy with your character? Or should you do absolutely everything you can, grinding through to the next level for no other reason than just because, or maybe to brag to your friends?

If you decide to strive for the highest levels, you’re gonna have to do some pretty amazing things. What epic things will you do to accumulate the necessary experience.