From Cherotic Magic Revised, Chapter 2: Chero (Section 8) by Frank Moore, first published in 1990:
Almost anything can be used as a model to show how the cherotic life works, even computer games. My kid got a computer game “Labyrinth” a few years back. It is a maze game with ever‑changing walls, with monsters bent on eating or shooting you if you don’t shoot them first. You have to rescue four men from four different cells and reach the door to the next level before you get killed three times. It, like life, appeared to be an action game requiring speed and quick reflexes. My kid has quick reflexes, so he was very good at this fast, high‑action game, full of tension, stress and glamour. He reached level 8 (of 12 levels) very quickly. But then he got restless and bored; so he quit playing.
Even though I could operate the controls to the game, there appeared to be no way for me to play the game successfully, because I did not and will not ever have speed and quick reflexes. But I started playing the game just to have something to do. I did want to reach the higher levels, but I put that want in my wakan brain and forgot it. (We will use this wakan brain in creating our reality later.) I accepted the framework of the game and started to absorb it into my body. I made it my own, even though it appeared I was a helpless victim of the game. For months I did not rescue even one man. But my body absorbed the rhythm of the changing walls. I began to feel where to move to avoid death and to get nearer to my objective. I did not try to understand because the events in the game are randomly nonlinear. But I tuned in on the reality of the game. By doing so, I changed the game into a slow strategy game. I did this by not resisting the structure, but by taking it on as my own.
This slow game offered much more fun to me than the fast game offered my son. If we measure the fun in time, my son only played the game semi‑regularly for only a few months, while I have played it now for a few years.
Every time I am about to move on to a new, higher level, I get stuck. I keep just about getting it, but then “failing.” This is because I let my wanting to get to the higher level out of my wakan brain, letting it become the goal that I am focused on. This raises the stress level to the point where I cannot do anything right. I get nervous and fearful.
I have learned to put my wants and goals away in my wakan brain ‑‑ to not focus on my wants and goals while still having them. I have learned that once I have my wants and goals in a priority order in my wakan brain, it sets the automatic process in motion to get what I want. If I tried to plan, plot, manipulate to get what I wanted, it would get in the way. I always get what I want, but rarely in the way I thought I would get.
Once I get my desires back into my wakan brain where they belong, the stress, fear, and nervous levels go down. The getting to the new level loses its special glamour, becoming just another state which I will some day get to, if not today, then maybe tomorrow. When this attitude is firmly implanted, one day I am guided into the new level. I cannot take credit for this. I am just let in. After this high point, my average score usually plunges. (A contraction.) If I stay calm and committed, my average score slowly climbs past the high point towards the next level. I have gone from not being able to get a single man to being on level 3, going for level 4. I went from being totally limited to being in the state of all possibilities. This was done not by anything I did or because of any skill I developed. It was done by enjoying playing even when there was no reachable goal. Enjoying playing unlocked every possibility.
