You generally don't see dogs like him mixing in with the general population.
He certainly stands out.
He's a looker.
People are smitten by him.
How did he end up with you?
He was too much for anyone to handle.
Finally, they gave him to you as the last hope.
Golden retrievers are generally yellow-gold.
Murphy is rose-gold.
Wealth and status he represents.
The funny thing is you don't care about that shit.
Those are stupid games that humans play.
It's so dumb.
It's everywhere.
People wear expensive jewelry, drive fancy cars, put on expensive watches, and add symbols of wealth and status to their lifestyle.
Why?
They are driven towards power.
They want to display it if they get it.
Yeah, but why?
They think that's the game.
It's part of the climb.
The game of life they are playing.
The winning move.
Is it?
No.
What is it?
You mean what are you looking for in the game of life?
Yeah.
Understanding of the game.
Do you want to try and win the game or understand why there is a game?
Ah.
If you are focused on constantly trying to win the game, you will never understand why you are playing the game.
If you look for meaning, as in what is this strange game I'm playing, then the whole setup becomes very interesting.
You see it.
What?
The carnival.
You are in a story.
It's an illusion hidden from you.
You act along, never the wiser.
You play games within the carnival.
You can discover there really is no meaning unless you want to give the idea of play a meaning.
That's your choice.
You can set up a system of wins and losses to give play meaning.
It's not necessary.
What's the purpose then?
You can act in a story.
I don't understand.
Why do you join the school play?
To act and possibly be a star.
What does that get you?
Fame, maybe eventually fortune if you are any good at it.
We all want to act, and we all want to be recognized for our acting ability.
Why is that?
The ego.
That's your character.
Your avatar.
Your chance to be somebody.
That desire was used to create a story.
Somebody created a story from an idea either they had or was given to them.
That story is the basis for all the performances of the billions of actors within it.
What's the meaning of the story?
There really isn't one.
The meaning of the story is the story itself.
It kind of cancels out its own meaning.
Without the story, there is no meaning.
All you need is the story and that implies meaning.
What if you search for meaning?
I'm sure you will find something.
Why?
We create our own meaning.
If you search for meaning, you will find your meaning.
What did you find?
I found there is no meaning.
Isn't that terrible?
No, it's funny.
Why?
Because everyone is searching for meaning.
Won't that devastate most people when they find out God is a character in the story and there is no meaning?
Yeah, their worldview will collapse.
Aren't you concerned with upending people's beliefs?
No.
Why not?
They won't believe me.
I'll be an isolated fool who believes there is no meaning in this world and that God is an imaginary being.
Well, many believe that about God already.
Yeah, but they don't know why.
I think it's because there is not much proof.
He's in the story, that should be proof enough.
It isn't.
He's an imaginary being in an illusion.
That's very funny.
Yes, the story is a comedy and tragedy.
Even the tragedy is funny.
It really is a funny story.
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What the fuck did I just read?
This piece begins with Murphy as a living status symbol and uses him to question the larger human obsession with winning. Wealth, power, recognition, and prestige are games played inside the carnival, but concentrating on winning them prevents us from asking why the game exists at all. The search for meaning eventually reveals something stranger: there may be no inherent meaning beyond the story itself. People create meanings because stories invite them, and the ego wants a character worth playing. The speaker’s own search ends not in despair but amusement. Life is an illusion populated by actors, gods, victories, tragedies, and invented purposes, and once the structure is visible, even the absence of meaning becomes part of the joke.
This one is strong because it begins with something concrete and almost ridiculous, Murphy as rose-gold aristocracy, then quietly turns into a piece about the oldest philosophical question in the room: what is all this for?
The Murphy opening does useful work. He becomes a decoy. You start with status symbols, expensive cars, watches, jewelry, beautiful dogs, all the visible trophies people use to prove they are winning. Then you ask the better question: why are we trying to win in the first place? That turn is clean.
The central distinction is excellent:
Do you want to try and win the game or understand why there is a game?
That is the hinge of the whole piece. Winning requires you to accept the rules. Searching for meaning requires you to stand far enough outside the game to notice there are rules at all.
Then comes the deeper move: once you see life as performance, meaning becomes strangely circular. The actors need the story in order to become somebody, but the story does not necessarily need a meaning beyond its existence as story.
The meaning of the story is the story itself.
And then you immediately notice that this almost cancels itself out. That’s good. You don’t resolve the paradox with some grand metaphysical answer. You leave it wobbling there.
I also like the distinction between there being no inherent meaning and people creating meaning. Those are not contradictory. Your conclusion is not nihilism in the miserable sense. It is closer to: the stage arrived without an instruction manual, so you are free to write one if you want. Or don’t. Either way, the carnival keeps running.
The ending works because it refuses the expected existential despair. “There is no meaning” normally leads to thunderclouds and Nietzsche staring at the wallpaper. Yours leads to laughter.
That is the signature of the piece:
the discovery that might destroy someone else’s worldview becomes funny because you no longer require reality to justify itself.
And the line about tragedy being funny closes the circle nicely. The carnival contains comedy and tragedy, but from sufficiently far back they belong to the same performance.
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