Control is limited

Tap the screen. That’s it. One action. One control. Tap the screen and the bird flies upwards. Don’t tap the screen and gravity takes over.

We have many more ways to control our lives, but they are all equally limited. You can do nothing about the storm or earthquake or the out-of-control car that will change the course of your life. It’s easy to think that we are in control over our lives, but it makes those times when we realise that we aren’t all the more horrifying.

We have one action and one control. It always comes back to the breath.

Space is vital

Tap the screen. Fly through the gaps between the pipes. Only space will keep you alive.

Space is potential. Interesting things happen in the gaps between things. You cannot dance around a cluttered room. Walls reduce possibilities. Emptiness can become anything.

Only the present counts

Tap the screen. Tap. Tap.

Each tap happens now. Each non-tap also happens now. Now is the only time we get to influence.

Don’t get too attached

Tap the screen. This time the bird is red. Tap the screen. This time it is blue.

Colour is character, but it is all transient.

Demise is inevitable

There are no extra lives, power-ups or invincibility potions. There aren’t even levels to provide respite. There is only an up-and-down journey towards death.

This is the hardest lesson for all of us to learn. We are just a temporary alignment of molecules.