Probably one of the most impactful pieces of poetry I’ve read. It’s embedded into end credits after they finish the canonical ‘end goal’ of beating the Ender Dragon in Minecraft.
The poem takes the form of a scrolling dialogue between two speakers who are discussing the player’s accomplishments, dreams, and relation to the rest of the universe as if they come from a different universe from the player.
Everything is a dream and a story and the life we live is a long one. Within it is the possibility of many worlds within it. See also: The Egg by Andy Weir + Kurzgesagt
Highlights
Of things beyond the game
But what true structure did this player create, in the reality behind the screen?
It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of the [scrambled], and created a [scrambled] for [scrambled], in the [scrambled].
It cannot read that thought.
No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.
Of suffering
Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?
Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.
But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its sad creation for reality.
To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere.
…
and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you
and the universe said the light you seek is within you
Of charting your own path
To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
I will not tell the player how to live.