How to live a thousand lives?

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”

-George R. R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

This quote depicts truly the lives of people who read, do theater, write fiction or play role playing games. The ability to relive the lives of the characters I read or play has been one the most rewarding activities of my life. The feeling of immersion when I delve into the stories of Neil Gaiman or when I jump in to shoes of my 1950's marketing manager, who happens to be a Reaper and a lousy husband, has opened worlds that I couldn't have imagined. Yet I did.

Yes some people do actually read and most people atleast watch movies. Movies, if well made, are a good way to experience small portion of the level of immersion that a good book can achieve. It is still nothing compared to a good theater play and those plays can achieve small portion of the level of immersion that acting or role playing can achieve. The difference is the level of control and participation one has while engaged in these activities. The immersion grows so much stronger when you move from being a passive consumer and become an active player.

The ability to use ones own imagination is one of the greatest strengths and gifts humanity has been given. Yet so few actively use and train their imagination during the course of their lives. They take the "Reality" as it's presented with capital R, immovable and unchangeable, instead of seeing that it's only an subjective illusion and the true Reality is a collective clutter of billions of these subjective realities. Since reality is partially what you make of it, you get the power to influence it. And this is where the magic starts!

The first thing you need to mind is your attitude. Something happens. How do you react to it? Do you take the first impulse that comes from your lizard brain and act accordingly or can you take a mental step back and analyze what just happened and then choose your action? This mental step gives you power over your own emotions and thus strengthens your power over reality. Is your base mindset positive or negative? Through which kind of lens do you look at life? Is it gray, muddy, everyday struggle to keep up with the Joneses or is every moment a gift to cherish and use with the best of your abilities? Probably something in between since it's hard to not compare your own life to those of others and nobody can live every moment like a Steve Jobs on crack. The point is that be aware of your reactions and actions since those are the things that define you after all.

Even when you're not doing any of that artsy stuff mentioned above you can pimp your everyday experiences in variety of ways. First of all if you think how much more interesting the world is inside your head than outside it think also that everyone else also thinks like this. This makes each and every encounter with people so much more interesting since you don't need to take them as they stand there but as the bottomless well of imagination, dreams and hopes that they are.

One thing I also do from time to time is that I adapt a person of interest, true of fictional, and play him for awhile. I think about how one of my heroes would do this or manage that and use his role to overcome my own deficiencies. It's so much cooler to go on about as Richard Branson or maybe even Richard Rahl (Sword of Truth) for the duration of the scene and experience world in different way.

There's dozens of different techniques to help you to unleash your imagination and you just need to explore a little to know what suits you. One thing I can say is that if you do life will never be the same again.

Live a little, play a little!