The End Poem, Minecraft and the House Builder

The End Poem by Julian Gough, composed to mark the completion of the game Minecraft, resonates on multiple levels, not just within the realm of digital worlds, but also in the profound reflections it evokes on reality, imagination, and creation. One particular line from the poem strikes a deep chord: “Sometimes, they are deep in dreams. I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality.” This speaks to the spiritual tension between imagination and reality, and immediately recalls both the ancient Hindu notion of Maya — the idea that the world is an illusion — and the mystic perspective that what we perceive as reality might be God’s dream.

At first glance, these ideas seem paradoxical. Minecraft’s players build worlds in a virtual space, a sandbox of infinite creative potential. In these digital realms, players construct landscapes, cities, and intricate designs, and in doing so, they blur the lines between imagination and reality. What is “real” when the world is something you make yourself? Does building within the game signify something deeper about the human experience?

In Hindu philosophy, Maya is the illusory nature of the phenomenal world, where everything we perceive is a projection, a veil obscuring the ultimate truth. From this perspective, all that we see, touch, and know in our waking life is no more real than the…