Mark Manson Doesn't Understand What Game He Is Really Playing @Mark Manson

Watch on YouTube · 2025-07-14 · 17 min

0:00 hey what's up guys i'm gonna be reviewing a video called life is a video game here are the cheat codes by mark manson have you ever gotten completely lost in a video game and wondered why can't i have this sort of focus and dedication in my actual life It's very simple. It's because in your actual life, living in captivity, you are not allowed to do what you naturally want to do. And because these games usually show you what you want to do, you live in the virtual reality. That's it. There's no mystery to it.

[video] 0:42 That's because in life, you don't understand the game you are playing.

0:47 He's right about that. I just doubt that he understands it himself.

[video] 0:55 In this video, I'm going to lay out in painfully simple terms exactly what the game of life entails, how it is played, and why you have failed to advance as far as you would like. And of course, I will give you the cheat codes so that you can warp further ahead. Let's get into it.

[video] 1:11 Now, video games are something known as finite games. They have a strict set of conditions that, once met, the game is over. You beat the dragon and save the princess and you win. You beat up the bad guy and save the world and you win. You fucking destroy whatever that thing is. I guess you win. But life is what's called an...

1:28 Yeah, and that's funny because usually in video games, the bad guy is actually the good guy and the good guy is the bad guy from nature's perspective. So in video games, you're actually the real bad guy trying to eliminate the good guys over 90% of the time. It's conditioning, it's mind control.

[video] 1:51 you gain a special skill or ability or knowledge that will help you improve and conquer the next levels. So in video games, victories will make your character stronger and defeat will cause you to remain the same. But in the game of life, it is your failures that make your character stronger and successes that cause you to stay.

2:07 Now, your failures in nature, in your actual real life, would usually result in an injury and that would usually result in your death.

2:19 It would be very likely, that would almost always happen. It would be a miracle if you would fail in your natural real life and then still survive. Failure usually results in death. So you don't want to fail. In other words, you always want to succeed. What he says makes no sense. Therefore, paradoxically, the point of the... Well, it does make sense because he's talking about the matrix. He's talking about

2:54 As you could see, losing at golf or something at the Olympics. Yeah, because it's fake. Because it's the same as video games. In video games, you imitate hunting, competing. And in man-made stupid sports, you do the same. It's as fake as video games. It's for slaves.

3:18 whatever you do whichever one of those you're still enslaved you're still not doing what you naturally want to do that's why you can never have real focus on that because it will never be fun because it's fake because it's for losers because you're living a loser life game of life is not necessarily to win at everything you do but rather to continuously build your character through No, it is about always winning, always being happy and healthy. And if you fail, you're not going to be. That's bad. If you don't hit a ball into a net, football, yeah, then you can get better by learning how to kick a ball into a net better. But you're a loser if you do that in the first place. And yeah, then you can get better if you fail at football. But what does it matter? Because it's fake anyway. It's the same with video games. So what?

4:18 So you get better at a video game. You lose a round, you play it again and again. That's not how real life works. In real life you fail, that's it most likely. Your life is done.

[video] 4:31 Yeah, but none of this is life. This is the same as the video game. You're completely delusional, man. What kind of a stupid video is this? You're fucking showing man-made sports all the time which imitate hunting.

[video] 4:57 Yeah, but even our relationships today are fake That also doesn't work in nature

5:27 Ah, it's such a dumb video. And you get to design the character.

[video] 5:31 But in real life, you were given the character, and you have to design the quests. Again, video games have clear conditions which you have to meet to win. Most games lay these conditions out in excruciating detail, going as far as walking you through every tiny thing you need to do to be a winner. The fun, then, is in designing or adapting or choosing your character to accomplish these quests. Do you want to be a lawless barbarian? Or do you want to be a noble sorcerer? Do you want to just break a bunch of shit? In the game of life, there are infinite quests, yet you are limited in your abilities and knowledge. Therefore, the goal is to find and choose the best quest to suit your character, to allow you to play the game as long and meaningfully as possible.

6:02 No, there's only nature and what you're naturally supposed to do. And if you do anything else, even if you try to imitate what you naturally want to do by playing video games and sports, It will still leave you empty, your life will be meaningless, unfulfilled, you will be unhappy and even also unhealthy on top of that. That's it. There's no way around, there's no man-made quests, there's nothing else. It's just nature and your natural needs and desires. and everything else is man-made and illusion part of the matrix and you're talking about the matrix that's it video games are also part of the matrix so this whole video makes no sense because everything that he's talking about is part of the matrix anyway absolutely useless dumb video and this brings us to our first cheat code in video games you generally want to

6:56 By the way, as a side note, this guy is only 41 years old. This video has bad lighting, you can't really see it, but he looks very old for his age. I'm just saying that because obviously he's not living a good life himself. Should you be taking advice from somebody who looks like he's in his 50s? And he does look like that in all of the other videos.

7:28 No, why? Because you failed at life, at the natural life. Play whatever video games or sports you want, whatever quests...

[video] 7:38 doesn't matter because if you age that quickly you failed anyway that's it you decreased your lifespan rack up as many side quests as possible to level up your character and get sick loot but in the game of life side quests are a fun distraction at best and waste years of your life at worst in this day and age it is incredibly easy to get sidetracked onto a bunch of useless side quests and vanity tasks that have no actual impact on the quality of your life a huge hack to winning the game of life then is to simply be more focused and obsessed about your main quest than other people so the fewer side quests the the better. In video games, side quests tend to be kind of lame and little more than glorified errands. But in real life, the side quests are generally sexy, exciting, and seductive. Now this is gonna be incredibly difficult to forego, but the more you can give up the dumb side quests, the more you will stay on track with your main quest, leading to a happier and more fulfilling life. It's not easy, it's not fun, but you know, that's the whole thing about being a hero. You have to give up stuff.

8:28 It's not easy, it's not fun. That's what being a hero is? What is he talking about? He all the time says the opposite of the truth.

[video] 8:40 In video games, you know who your character is from the first moment you start the game. You know how well you can run.

8:45 You know what I'm actually really glad about? I don't recognize any video game. I think actually literally none of them. Wait, no, I did Fallout. Fallout I do recognize because back when I used to play video games, I played it. I don't know which one it was. That was, who knows, 15 years ago, maybe even more. I don't know when it came out. That was the only one, but I don't know any of these. It's great, actually. I'm really glad about it.

[video] 9:21 Jump, pick up things, or shoot a gun. In some cases, you even get to pick who your character is and all the traits that they have. You can be like a badass night elf with gigantic... Well, anyway. The game of life is weird because for the first few decades, you don't actually know who your character is. You don't know what you're good at. You don't know what your talents are. You don't know what you're gonna enjoy pursuing or how you're gonna respond to adversity. Therefore, the first goal of every new character

9:42 But everything that he just showed is what kids do, because again, they are not allowed to do what they naturally want to do, such as hunting. That's what kids learn in nature. First thing really, first important actual thing for your survival, for playing the real game, so to speak. That's why people play video games, they play tag, they throw at objects. But you're again just showing what slaves do when they are enslaved.

[video] 10:14 If you have social anxiety, then you're biochemically sick. You need to be eating raw meat, what you're naturally supposed to eat. There's no such thing as an anxious raw meat eater. It's just your biochemical state, mate.

[video] 10:41 Man, this makes no sense.

11:05 Weren't they exposed to be some kind of scammers? The therapists are not actually real therapists or something? Whatever, not as if this guy gives a shit about his audience.

[video] 11:20 There's a final boss in a classic video game named Mike Tyson, who once said, not everyone who hurts you is an enemy and not everyone who helps you is a friend. It's important to realize that while on your quest, there will be many people who naturally align with your quest and many who do not. This is inevitable. The challenge in the game of life is less about avoiding enemies than simply recognizing who and what.

11:37 In nature you have your family and everybody has the same quest anyway, essentially. Which is what you naturally want to do. So you do it together with your family. It's pretty simple.

[video] 11:54 There will be people who will naturally align their quests with yours. These are special people and you should take great care of them when you come across them. Not only because they will aid you on your quest, but because all of the cliches are true. Victory is really only worth experiencing once.

[video] 12:09 It's counterintuitive, but helping other people with their quests will make it easier to advance in yours. This is because you will build alliances and goodwill towards your goals. People will share information, knowledge, and skills with you. They will help protect you from diversions and lame side quests, and they will have your best interests at heart. And other times, they'll just...

12:25 Yeah, because you can't really do anything on your own in nature and you wouldn't even want to. It's basically close to impossible to survive. Not only because of food and shelter, but simply because you're gonna go completely nuts alone. It's just not doable.

[video] 12:46 Just love you. Basically, the more you try to help other people win, the more they'll try to help you win. This is the opposite of the envy trap. Let's call it the charity cheat code. Nothing gets you further ahead than giving away progress to others. This is a weird loophole in the game of life. The grand illusion that we all seem to fall for, time and time again. That we mistakenly believe that we must be the hero and the world should be our sidekick. When actually, the opposite is true. There is no hero, and we're all each other's sidekicks. Thanks for being my sidekick. I could actually use some fucking help.

13:18 That was funny at the end with the controller if it wasn't done on purpose or even if it was Overall a very delusional guy completely stuck in the so-called matrix He believes that when you're talking about video games, that you're talking about this illusionary virtual reality man-made life that you're living. That's what some losers do, kids, teenagers, whatever. And then there's the real life, which is you focusing on golf, basketball, any kind of sports, your job, nonexistent money, and so on, which is actually all just as fake. What's the difference between playing Counter-Strike or football?

14:13 you physically exert yourself when you play football so health-wise it's even way worse for you at least and health-wise you're living a sedentary life doing fake hunting it's just as fake as far as what the video was about it's all not your real life but at least

14:40 You kind of realize that it's a loser activity, that you're a slave. I think a lot of video gamers realize it at least. Whereas if you're playing basketball, football, you actually believe that you're living a real proper life. That's the trap here. Making the slaves believe that there's video games and whatever kind of games, board games, and then there's real life, which is... work, money, careers, sports and so on. They always build more layers. One of my oldest videos was actually about this. Understanding that it's not black and white. There's nature, the truth, and then there's the fake life matrix. Now there's many layers so that people believe that video games are the fake life and then there's the real life. But in reality there's a lot of layers of so-called truth.

15:39 And it's not that easy to see through it when you grow up as a slave and your whole life was fake. Point being, everything that he talked about is fake. It's all a video game. It's all a man-made game. It's all bullshit. In reality, there's only nature and your natural life, which most people on Earth are not living today.

16:10 there is nothing else because nothing else has any meaning gives you any fulfillment instead of hunting you play video games or sports instead of having children you have a fake intimacy with a

16:30 peel inside of you or plastic over your you-know-what and you get cats and dogs instead. Instead of eating real food, natural. raw meat you eat overcooked meat or beyond meat with red sauces and so on everything that i have explained in my videos that's a real life nobody's living a real life yeah the guy is completely lost and his audience is also lost it's a bunch of losers zero respect for these people thanks for watching