Giving up

 Hello!  I've just had a really depressing thought!  Hurrah.

Sometimes you're playing a game and you know you've lost well before the end and you're already thinking about the next game, or you're in a league and you're disappointed with your position but you know you can't go higher, you might even know you can't go lower, but there's still half the season to play.  Or you're playing a computer game and you're progressing through the levels but you've been using a cheat mode and you know that, even if you reach the end, it won't be satisfying because you haven't really done it yourself.  Or you're working on a piece of art and you realise half way through that this isn't the piece your soul had intended to make or you're no longer inspired by your work.  You might even grow to be horrified by it.  Terrified.  Bored of it.  Or maybe you're living a life and you think it could have been so much better but you can't do anything about it now so you may as well just keep surviving and grow old and relax and maybe in the next life you can do more, achieve more, be a better person.  (That's the depressing thought, in case you were wondering.)

Sometimes you're playing that game or you're in that position in the league or you're in the computer game or you're working on that piece and you start thinking that the next game, the next season, the next time you play, the next piece will be different and you'll start again and you'll be better and it'll be better.  Or you're living that life and you think that the next one will be richer.  There's nothing to be done for this one.  You may as well delete it from the record - it'll bring the average down.

But there's a good chance there isn't a record or another life.  There's a good chance this is the only game you'll ever play.  There's no league.  It's one commission and it's totally open, there were no instructions.  The cheats were written into the game so they're not really cheats, they're gameplay.  The scores can change incredibly quickly, a brush stroke can ignite your imagination, a change in the light, a movement to one side can transform your perception of a thing.  There is no end of level baddie, you are the programmer, you can adapt the game.

Never give up.