Myst epiphanies

Never know what others might see as a spoiler...so beware here and cash out
if it seems so. It's just some meanderings...as Myst III stimulates one
person's mind...
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Funny, not until Edanna, in the Myst III Exile game, did a kind of epiphany
hit me about how the essential truth of 'worlds' might exist.

I am reminded of Plato's Cave, where truth is seen as nothing but the
shadows cast upon a cave wall, upon which the inhabitants are FIXED in their
positions 'always' looking at the wall, and never from which the light
shines. In such a world, one looking down from that light source, might see
such cave dwellers as ignorant and unenlightened, imaging all things in
those shadows, while the truth of the light behind them unseen, they
remaining backwards in thought.

In much the same way, each world painted by the Myst games, each 'AGE',
seems to represent such a symbolic 'fixation' based solely upon the
environments any stream of consciousness might find itself 'eternally
embraced' with in the worlds such streams are born into.

Edanna, if you remember [those that have played Exile], is a giant Tree...of
sorts; more like the remnants of something now only hardened and weathered
by the sea like a gigantic piece of driftwood many stories high, still
attached to the ocean's floor. I don't think this is a spoiler to say that
an entire symbonic world of life based upon exotic bromolaid-like plants and
under-fauna exist in that tree...and a complex world evolved within which
the context of the puzzles in the game are laid out.

In each AGE, I wonder if other players are like myself, imagining what life
must be like in each world, where the inhabitants exist much like natives in
some far off exotic land undiscovered by the modern world.

But then, as the epiphany sets in, I begin to understand that there is no
'real' seperation between what we deem the 'modern world', supposedly
sophisticated and adorned with a kind of egoism of superiority that WE are
enlightened, and the tribal world [wherever it may exist] is not. In fact,
are not we all cave dwellers...or in Myst's case, tree dwellers, or island
dwellers of many kinds, where worlds stand apart only in the artifacts upon
which life attaches itself and adapts...and then creates 'visions' of
sanctity in, ahem , the mysts of time and space? The 'shrouds' of our
minds, encapsulated like blood vessels involving themselves with tissue, are
extensions of any given world, and not visa versa, no matter how
sophisticated and enlightened we try and 'think' ourselves to be.

That a world is simple or complex, it remains, our consciousness simply
attaches itself...and adapts, never really KNOWING from which it all is
created; never knowing exactly how the shadows we base our truths, are made;
either from the minds of writers like Atrius and sons, great thinkers and
phlosophers, or some other god-like figure, or even God, or even the
randomness of chaos as things interact in that Myst.

This complex world we call Earth...I realize is nothing more than another
tree, floating upon an open sea...and each cave only the hollow core of
caves larger...but probably no less neverending; we no more superior nor
more enlightened than the barest pond scum that gives itself as home to the
tiniest microbe.

But...hmm...I wonder if there is a puzzle to solve??? Would be nice if
there was some sort of payoff ride when it's solved. Unfortunately, I have
commented before, that we all die never REALLY knowing what this was all
about [life]. But then, perhaps it doesn't matter...but only that we learn
what this world was all about. I dunno. The epiphany was limited I
suppose, ha.