The Rules of the Game

What We Won't Talk About is Killing Us

Let me ask you a question: How are you doing existentially?

My guess is that you’ve never been asked that before. I want to change that.

If I were to ask how you’re doing physically, you’d describe how you are feeling in your body. If you were under the weather you might say you’re not feeling so great. If you just started a new fitness routine, your body might be sore. As an ultra-endurance athlete, I learned to be dialed into feedback from my body. You could do a body scan exercise right now and focus your attention on different parts of your body, noticing any physical sensations.

If I asked how you are mentally or emotionally, you might reply with a description of your state of mind or a particular emotion you might be experiencing in that moment. Maybe you’re mentally stressed or anxious, or perhaps you feel joyful and relaxed. Research suggests there may be 27 distinct categories of emotions. 😊😒😠😢

Our human thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations are continuously in flux. They arise, dissolve, change, come and go.

But if I asked how you’re doing existentially, what would you say? Like, is that even a thing? That time when you bumped into an old friend at Target and they asked, “So how have you been existentially?” Never!

The root word of “existential” is existence, which is the state of being alive. When I ask you about your existential health, I’m asking you something about being alive. You might be thinking, “Okay, I’m alive. That about covers it. My existential health is great. I’m here. Peace out.”

Existential health involves something more than the fact of being alive. It’s about your relationship with the substructure of your existence. That sounds a bit heavy - “substructure of existence.” We could just as well call it the “rules of the game”.

What is the substructure of your existence?

The substructure of existence are the underlying principles that govern existence itself. I don’t mean “existence” as some abstract idea that encompasses the totality of everything. What I am referring to is your and my existence - human existence. The matter at hand is the underlying principles that govern our existence as human beings. In other words, how existence occurs for us as Homo sapiens.

Our point of contact with the givens of human existence is our mind. It’s the processor and internal narrator of our bodily experience. In a previous three-part series on the evolution and anthropology of religion, I discussed how our species acquired the awareness of our place in the universe and how we learned to process it.

A dog, cat, rock or tree do not contemplate the dynamics of existence on a psychological level as humans do. No French Bulldog is caught in the clutches of nihilism, fretting over the meaning of life or what happens when you die. If you want to read an interesting book on the evolution of our existential awareness, consider reading I am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter.

We don’t often think about the studs of human existence. We’ve got more pressing things to worry about like paying bills, raising kids and keeping some sense of sanity afloat. But the truth is that the substructure of existence is what unconsciously governs our lives.

Another way to think about this is with the metaphor, the “rules of the game”. We’ve all heard the phrase. “Rules of the game” are the implied or unspoken principles that govern a situation, in this case, human existence.

What are the human existence rules of the game? I want to suggest it’s these:

Rule #1: We will die. (human mortality)

Rule #2: Life has no absolutes. (human groundlessness)

Rule #3: Complete happiness is not possible. (human insatiability)

Rule # 4: We experience ourselves as separate. (human isolation)

Perhaps these four rules of the game (or givens of human existence) don’t sound too promising or inspiring. I get it. Hang in there.

The possibilities and potentialities for any human life are infinite. Abraham Maslow pointed out in his Hierarchy of Needs that the highest aspiration wired into our species is the longing for self-actualization and even self-transcendence.

But there are still a few things ever person must know about their existence. There are four rules that cannot be changed. Regardless of the path we take in life, each of us will die, each of us must create our own meaning, and each of us will never be fully satisfied. We have to know that. For better or worse, this is the story we find ourselves in.

These facts create interpsychic conflict, anxiety and dread because we likely learned from the earliest age that these four realities are to be feared. Instead, we are indoctrinated into false promises of human immortality, absolute meaning and perfect happiness.

Whether it’s religion, therapeutic culture, self-improvement industry, mass marketing or Hollywood, we are fed messages that keep us believing in life everlasting, absolutes to live by, and happily ever after. Even some forms of non-religious spirituality lead us down the path of denial by holding out the Holy Grail of true enlightenment or the rewards of the law of attraction. It’s not that religion, therapy, spirituality or self-improvement don’t have a place. It’s just that they cannot alter the rules of the game.

Non-existence, freedom and responsibility for directing our lives, and the acceptance of lack, are terrifying to most people, and we expend the bulk of our energies staving off any acknowledgement of them.

It’s important to know that the rules of the game do not mean something is wrong with the game. An NFL football game has 60 minutes of playing time. If the clock runs out before your team’s epic comeback, you don’t leave the stadium in a rage that football games should have 63 minutes of playing time. Likewise, you will die, you alone are responsible for the meaning you give life, and you will never be 100% fully satisfied. That’s how the game of life works. But it doesn’t make life wrong.

In fact, I could make a very convincing argument that our existence would in fact be dreadful if we lived forever, were governed by absolutes, and we existed in a perpetual state of bliss. Many people have pointed out just how dreadful this would be.

German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, in a series of lectures on religion, said the following:

“Man has many wishes that he does not really wish to fulfil, and it would be a misunderstanding to suppose the contrary. He wants them to remain wishes, they have value only in his imagination; their fulfilment would be a bitter disappointment to him. Such a desire is the desire for eternal life. If it were fulfilled, man would become thoroughly sick of living eternally, and yearn for death. In reality man wishes merely to avoid a premature, violent or gruesome death. Everything has its measure, says a pagan philosopher; in the end we weary of everything, even of life; a time comes when man desires death. Consequently there is nothing frightening about a normal, natural death, the death of a man who has fulfilled himself and lived out his life. Old men often long for death. The German philosopher Kant could hardly wait to die, and not in order to resuscitate, but because he longed for the end. Only an unnatural, unfortunate death, the death of a child, a youth, a man in the prime of life, makes us revolt against death and wish for a new life. Such misfortunes are bitterly painful for the survivors; and yet they do not justify belief in a hereafter, if only because such abnormal cases – and they are abnormal even if they should be more frequent than natural death – could only have an abnormal hereafter as their consequence, a hereafter for those who have died too soon or by violence; but a special hereafter of this kind is an absurdity which no one could believe.”

We are familiar with the Marx quote that religion is the “opium of the people.” The full quote, which is not an easy read but worth the work reads:

“The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”

I discuss the “opiate of religion” at length in an article I wrote on the Christian teaching on heaven, Does Heaven Exist? Did religion get Heaven wrong?

We experience the givens of human existence as “defects” because they are not as we were conditioned to wish them to be. Most people are culturally conditioned into the denial of the rules of the game. There are several ways this occurs, including:

• We learned human immortality, absolute meaning, and perfect happiness represent the greatest good.

• We have been made to fear death, human freedom and responsibility, and any sense of lack.

• Most religious ideologies (85% of the global population identifies with a religion) promote eternal life, existential certainty, and liberation from suffering.

Virtually every message we have ever received in life has promised that we can attain eternal life, find absolute meaning, and achieve perfect happiness. From womb to tomb we live inside the fortress of denial, against these givens of human existence.

I previously published an entire series of articles on our current metacrisis (and meaning crisis) and how accepting the givens of human existence factors into the equation. The series was broken down as follows:

• Part One: Everything is not okay... but life is the greatest good

• Part Two: What if the meaning of life is... life?

• Part Three: Is the world worth saving?

• Part Four: In Search of Existential Health in a Defective World

• Part Five: Put Down Your Holy Grail and ToE and Grab a Shovel

• Part Six: Is the metasolution for the metacrisis... inner anarchy?

What’s Driving Your Life?

The field of modern psychology, pioneered by Freud and Jung, discovered the governing powers of our unconscious life.

The unconscious, also referred to as the subconscious, is the portion of the mind that operates below the level of conscious awareness. It encompasses mental processes, thoughts, feelings, and memories that are not readily accessible to our conscious thoughts, but can still influence our behavior and decision-making.

The unconscious mind is estimated to govern around 95% of human brain activity, with the remaining 5% being conscious. This means that most of our thoughts, behaviors, and decisions are driven by unconscious processes rather than conscious ones.

Stop for a moment and reflect upon this fact. 95% of your brain activity is governed by your unconscious.

We practically deify personal agency, critical thinking and self-determination, but the reality is that our lives are largely driven by a nexus of fears, anxieties, wishes, longings and denials we are not conscious of.

Let me put it this way. The rules of the game are buried in our unconscious along with our corresponding fears, anxieties and denials. They are not just quietly and harmlessly sitting there. They are virtually dictating everything we think and do in life.

Irwin Yalom wrote,

“Four givens are particularly relevant for psycho-therapy: the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and, finally, the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life.”

And…

“Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.”

The unconscious fear of death, often referred to as unconscious death anxiety or thanatophobia, is a universal and deeply ingrained human experience, even if it’s not always explicitly acknowledged. It stems from the realization of our own mortality and the inevitable end of existence. This fear can manifest in various ways, influencing our behaviors, choices, and emotional responses.

If you ask someone if they think about death a lot or if they fear dying, they are likely to say no. But we know that the real answer is, yes. Most people harbor in their unconscious a deep fear about dying, death and non-existence. I wrote an extensive article on the subject, Do you fear death? How to cultivate healthy death acceptance.

Irwin Yalom is a pioneering figure in the field of existential psychotherapy (or existential therapy). If you are interested in doing a deep-dive into this realm, give this pdf a read. It’s a book and will take a while. Other pioneering figures in this field include: Otto Rank, Rollo May, and Viktor Frankl.

The basic premise of existential therapy is that the most foundational component of psychological health and overall well-being is how we relate to the existential rules of the game. Conversely, the primary cause of psychological malady is a failure to constructively relate to these givens of human existence.

Existential health is necessary for human well-being and flourishing. I go to great measures to make this point in my article, Jim and the Simple, Compossible, No Nonsense, Very Subversive Idea: What's off at the center of everything? I began talking about “existential health” several years ago as a result of my work with people who experience post-religion existential distress. Ultimately I discovered that existential health is a universal requirement if we plan on succeeding at creating a regenerative future. Or another way to put is: healthy humans build healthy societies and healthy societies ensure planetary health. To understand these dynamics in more detail, spend some time investigating the concept of the Anthropocene. This 3-minute video is a good starting point.

Understanding Existential Health

You could say that “existential health” is a matter of how constructively we relate to the four rules of the game or the givens of human existence. Existential health is the felt capacity to live meaningfully, coherently, and freely in a world that offers no guaranteed meaning. It’s not about certainty—it’s about relationship: to self, others, nature, time, death, and possibility.

There are five dimensions to existential health:

1. Ontological Grounding: Your relationship to being itself.

• Feeling at home in the world rather than exiled from it

• A sense of belonging that doesn’t depend on belief systems

• The ability to hold paradox, ambiguity, and multiplicity

• A grounded sense of “I am” that isn’t rigid or ego-fragile

2. Meaning-Making Capacity: Not meaning as a fixed answer, but meaning as a skill.

• Ability to generate meaning through creativity, ritual, service, or connection

• Comfort with meaning as emergent, relational, and revisable

• Resilience in the face of meaning collapse (deconstruction, nihilism, rupture)

3. Emotional & Existential Tolerance: Your ability to feel the full spectrum of existence without shutting down.

• Capacity to be with grief, awe, fear, wonder, longing

• Ability to metabolize existential anxiety rather than avoid it

• Emotional flexibility instead of emotional rigidity

4. Narrative Coherence: The story you tell about your life—and your ability to rewrite it.

• A sense of continuity without being trapped by old scripts

• Ability to integrate rupture, trauma, and transformation

• A narrative that is honest, spacious, and self-authored

5. Relational & Ecological Embeddedness: Existence is not a solo sport.

• Feeling part of a web—human, ecological, ancestral, communal

• Mutuality instead of hyper-individualism

• Rituals that root you in something larger than the self

Existential Health FAQ Guide

1. What is existential health?

Existential health is being in constructive and meaningful relationship with the givens of human existence, which are:

Human mortality - inevitability of death

Human groundlessness - absence of absolutes

Human insatiability - unabating desire for fulfillment

Human isolation - sense of separation

“Existential health” is based upon the fundamental belief that all people experience intrapsychic conflict due to their interaction with certain conditions inherent in human existence. I have identified these conditions as human mortality, human groundlessness, and human insatiability.

We need a constructive way of living with these givens of human existence. This is critical for establishing the necessary psychological outlook or grounding from which to actualize the next stage of our collective human evolution. Without existential health we risk the threat of nihilism, which is perhaps the greatest obstacle to our survival.

2. Why is existential health largely unknown?

Existential health is largely unknow because it’s the most invisible, undetectable, and veiled component of the human person. In other words, we are often unaware or unconscious of our deepest existential anxieties and fears. Because denial is the predominant coping mechanism for the givens of human existence, these matters are not often acknowledged or discussed.

3. What are the consequences of poor existential health?

Poor existential health fuels our current ecological, social and spiritual divide. Anxiety, depression, nihilism, and feelings of isolation, fragmentation, loneliness, and despair are often the hidden effects of existential dis-ease. Jiddu Krishnamurti wrote, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” I previously published an article related to this, In Search of Existential Health in a Defective World.

4. How does religion thwart existential health?

One of the reasons why existential health can make for a dicey proposition is because it often crosses into the territory of religion. 85% of the global population identifies with a religion, which means that their orientation toward life’s common existential concerns such as the origins of the universe, existence of God, meaning and purpose of life, and what happens when we die, are answered by their religious beliefs. Differing beliefs on such matters of ultimate significance among the world’s different religions is often a source of great division and animosity in the world.

Religion is partly responsible for the denial of the givens of human existence. The concept of “God” is a universally accepted master-signifier upon which we project satisfactory resolution for every existential dilemma. People’s faith in God is often based upon the notion that God can overturn the rules of the game.

In my view, there are much more meaningful and profound ways of understanding “God” than the guy in the sky who punches your ticket to eternal Heaven, answers all the big questions for you, and promises a blessed life if you trust and obey. I discuss some other options in my article, The Post-Religion "God" Dilemma: Is walking away from religion walking away from God?

Fortunately, our species also discovered that living our best life is not possible in the denial of the givens of human existence but only through the acceptance of them. Buddhism, Stoicism, and existential philosophy are a few examples of frameworks that accept the rules of the game.

Buddhist teachings often emphasize the impermanence and fragility of life, reminding practitioners that everything is constantly changing and ultimately subject to decay. Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, wrote, “It is not death that a man should fear, but rather he should fear never beginning to live.” I have in previous articles excavated the work of existential philosophers such as Albert Camus as it relates to the meaninglessness of life as an invitation to . It’s a topic I also discuss in, Life is Absurd: And that's the good news.

5. Existential Health Practitioners

For the last 30 years I have been working with people in belief-system deconstruction, non-religious spiritual formation, and existential health. I recently estimated that I have invested over 40,000 hours in private practice and research in these areas. In 2021 I founded the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality (CNRS) and one component of CNRS is training and certifying existential health practitioners. We have 60 people enrolled in the current training, which is a 12-month process.

Though I eventually gave up trying to devise the Theory of Everything, for the past several years I’ve been contemplating how to best encapsulate the core idea of the work I and others have been doing as existential health practitioners.

I came up with this short-form explanation: PC-EXH-BMSRP

I’ve already contacted the makers of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to recommend a sequel in which the answer to everything is no longer “42” but instead, PC-EXH-BMSP. I’m already working on the t-shirts!

But seriously… let me fill in the details on this strange assortment of letters.

The letters represent the following:

PC (Person-Centered) - EXH (Existential Health) - BMSRP (Body, Mind, Spirit, Relationships, Place)

Person-Centered therapy is a form of psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers. The focus is not on the brilliance of the therapist as a psychological guru who can fix every problem, but on the therapist cultivating the kind of therapeutic environment in which the client is empowered to tap into their own actualizing tendency, “an inbuilt proclivity toward growth and fulfillment.”

The core values of Person-Centered Therapy are unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence. These values are essential for creating a supportive and therapeutic environment where clients can explore their thoughts and feelings and develop self-understanding.

• Unconditional Positive Regard: This means the therapist accepts and values the client for who they are, without judgment or criticism. This creates a safe space where the client can feel accepted and understood, even when they are struggling.

• Empathy: This involves understanding and sharing the client's emotions and perspectives from their point of view. It's about actively listening and trying to see the world as the client does.

• Congruence: This refers to the therapist's genuineness and authenticity in their interactions with the client. It means being real and honest, and not hiding their true feelings or opinions.

These core values help to build a strong therapeutic relationship, allowing clients to feel safe, supported, and understood, which is crucial for facilitating personal growth and change.

A significant component in my training of Existential Health Practitioners is equipping them to create the kind of relationship, atmosphere and environment where people feel safe to explore matters that have been cast aside into their unconscious, fortified behind fear, anxiety and denial.

I recently did a livestream with Maura McInerney-Rowley who writes and curates the Hello, Mortal Substack newsletter with Carolyn Gregoire. Their Substack newsletter focuses on promoting health death acceptance and cultivating a positive relationship with our human mortality.

In the equation PC-EXH-BMSRP, the “EXH” obviously refers to existential health, which is cultivating a constructive relationship with the givens of human existence (the rules of the game). Practically speaking, this involves four key areas: “BMSRP” - body, mind, spirit, relationships and place. By the way, what I mean by “place” is the community, neighborhood, ecosystem and planet that we inhabit.

In other words, it involves a person exploring these questions:

What does it mean for me to be existentially healthy in my body… in my mind… in my spirit… in my relationships… in my place?

To make the point more emphatically:

How can I cultivate a constructive relationship with the rules of the game (human mortality, human groundlessness, human insatiability) in a way that fosters individual, collective, societal and planetary flourishing?

The goals of the existential practitioner are:

• Help clients face existential anxiety rather than avoid it

• Support authentic living aligned with chosen values

• Encourage meaning-making as an ongoing practice

• Foster responsibility and agency in the face of freedom

• Integrate rupture, grief, and transformation into a coherent life narrative

6. How does one cultivate existential health?

Cultivating existential health is being in a constructive and integral relationship with the givens of human existence, which involves your body, mind, spirit, relationships and place. It involves a significant mindset shift in at least the following ten mindset shifts:

Mindset Shift One: Human mortality, human groundlessness and human insatiability are not problems to fix, truths to deny and avoid, or realities to fear.

Mindset Shift Two: Accepting and constructively relating to my human mortality, human groundlessness and human insatiability are my central pathways for cultivating the life of meaning, beauty, love and connection I desire.

Mindset Shift Three: Being existential healthy in my body, mind, spirit, relationships and place is foundational to individual, collective, societal and planetary wellness, health and flourishing.

Mindset Shift Four: I can foster a philosophy of life, spirituality or belief in God that doesn’t deny or avoid the givens of human existence, but that empowers the process with greater wisdom, resilience and compassion.

Mindset Shift Five: The fact that I will die, that I alone have the freedom and responsibility to give my life meaning, and that some sense of lack will always be apparent in my life, do not prevent me from actualizing the infinite potentialities and possibilities of my lived human experience.

Mindset Shift Six: The rules of the game don’t make the game wrong, they make the game beautiful.

Mindset Shift Seven: Transformation is not transcending the rules of the game, but learning to be in integral relationship with the rules of the game.

Mindset Shift Eight: Actively cultivating existential health brings our deepest fears, anxieties, longings and denials out of the unconscious into our conscious awareness where they can be faced and constructively addressed.

Mindset Shift Nine: One of the greatest contributions we can make to the health and wellbeing of our species is creating opportunities and spaces where people can discuss and explore the givens of human existence and existential health as a normative aspect of daily live and living.

Mindset Shift Ten: We can create art, rituals, practices and community that fosters greater existential health.

I created the below diagram to summarize existential health:

In Summary

• We’ve probably never been asked about our existential health, but it might be the most important question to answer.

• The ru. les of the game don’t make the game wrong.

• 95% of what’s governing our lives is floating around in our unconscious in fears, anxieties, and denials.

• We will die, we are responsible for our life’s meaning, and nothing will ever be perfect, but wellbeing is based not upon denying these by accepting them.

• Existential health is being in constructive and meaningful relationship with the givens of human existence.

• We can foster a philosophy of life, spirituality or belief in God that doesn’t deny or avoid the givens of human existence, but that empowers the process with greater wisdom, resilience and compassion.

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“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning