Version 2.0

In Director Shawn Levy’s Free Guy, Jodie Cromer played video game designer Millie, whose avatar is Molotov Girl in the game world of Free City. On a sublime evening, Molotov Girl walks with Non-Player Character (NPC) Guy, played by Ryan Reynolds, along the secluded wharf.

Millie confides, “Growing up I was obsessed with swings. But you don’t want to hear this…” Millie wrote the AI (Artificial Intelligence) engine embedded in Guy’s program. Guy’s AI activated, becoming sentient when he met Molotov Girl (Millie), who’s the woman of his dreams written in his code. Falling in love with Millie, Guy wants to hear about her childhood.

Millie says, “Growing up in my family, I wasn’t good enough to be great. And I had to win. You know that pressure is just constant. But when I was in the backyard on the swing… You know that moment, in the split second between like rising and falling, when you’re totally weightless. Feels like you’re… free.”

Simultaneously. Guy says, “Love.”

He smiles, “Free, like what you said.”

Freedom. Love. They’re the same. Rather, one gives rise to the other. Just saying.

Millie said, “I wasn’t good enough to be great.” That was me too, growing up in my family. Dad scared the hell out of me. No, I was never going to be great. I was never going to be good enough, either. In Free Guy, Millie created her video game world where she was free to be great. That was so unlike her real world. At 8-years old, I too wished that I could escape to the created world where I could be great. Instead, I suffered my childhood.

Fortunately, I discovered my path in Aikido, training with the late Mizukami Sensei. Sensei taught me what it is to be a good man. He created the space to be me to invent the greater-than versions of myself. For the first time in my life, I was free.

Ishibashi Sensei is now my Sensei. Mizukami Sensei taught both of us. Sensei is Rokudan (6^th degree black belt). I’m Godan (5^th degree black belt). Mizukami was a father to us. Nothing but mad love and respect to Sensei. Ishibashi Sensei said, “Aikido is freedom.” The purpose of Aikido is to release my fear within me. That’s the possibility of love.

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In my own trials and tribulations, I trained to get where I am. I work with my therapist Lance to heal my childhood trauma and depression. I looked at my fear of not being good enough, the fear within me sourced from Dad. The late Mizukami Sensei said, “Just train. It’s not like you have to get somewhere.” I just trained working with Lance.

I entered what I feared, entered the danger. I ground it out. I love myself for who I am and forgive myself for who I’m not. I free me. I didn’t create some virtual game world, some alternate reality to escape. I love and forgive mine own self. That’s love. That’s freedom.

Perhaps in human design, there exists the software code: I’m not good enough. Just guessing. We can rewrite new code: Be kinder to ourselves. Lighten the fuck up. Love and forgive thine own self. In human design, I choose who I am and what I do.

The voice inside that says, “I’m not good enough” is from the past, old code. That voice might not even be mine. Just saying. I can write new code: I’m okay. I can invent my greater-than version from there. My Version 2.0. In the bigger picture, I free myself; I love myself. Freedom. Love. Amen.