Disclaimer- A lot of these thoughts came from the Black Mirror episode “Bandersnatch”.

In most video games the main character has a clear purpose. Mario rescues the princess. Donkey Kong Jr. rescues his father. Ryu is trying to win a world-wide martial arts tournament. But Pacman, if you look at it from his perspective, only has two objectives in life: eat as much as he can and try not to die.

He has no friends. He constantly runs around the same maze, never going anywhere new. He never faces new enemies (although the ghosts do get faster). The only difference he experiences is the food he eats. He is always eating, but is never full. Since he never gets bigger we can only assume that there is no nutritional value in the dots he eats. When he eats he gets points, when he gets enough points he gains an extra life, so that he can keep eating. Maybe he is just trying to have the best score out of anyone who came before him? He also can’t stop moving unless a wall stops him. If we think about Pacman as a character in a story, his existence is pretty sad. I wonder if we are the same as Pacman?

We are constantly consuming  food, Netflix, social media, smart phones, pornography, etc. We are always on the move, rarely taking the time to pause and reflect. We are trying any new health trend to live longer. We work really hard and try to move up the corporate ladder, usually to make enough money to buy bigger and better toys and have bigger and better experiences. We survive to consume and consume to survive.

“All man’s labor is for his stomach, yet the appetite is never satisfied” (Ecclesiastes 6:7). I wonder if Pacman would cry out with the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, “Absolute futility, everything is futile. What does a man gain for all his effort he labors at under the sun? I eat all of these dots, and the board is full at the next level. I increase my achievements and get the new high score, but the ghosts get me in the end whether I’m at level 2 or 20.”

Death is inevitable, whether we get 8 years or 88. There has to be more to life than consuming and surviving. If we don’t know our purpose, we are destined to be the same as Pacman, driven exclusively by our lusts and our fears. Do you have a purpose that is greater than yourself, one that will leave a legacy after you’re gone?