You’re involved in at least one situation that could be played as an infinite game. The creator of the concept of infinite games, James Carse, wrote the book as something of a metaphor for life as a whole. And yet there are applications beyond the metaphorical that produce a yield. Simon Sinek’s appropriately titled “The Infinite Game” is all about how this stuff can apply to business and leadership, and is probably the most accessible account of taking the idea of the infinite game “to the streets” that I’ve encountered to date.
So, what do these look like? The “search for truth” is one we’ve examined ad nauseam. One could argue, as Sinek does, that geopolitics itself is an infinite game (how, otherwise, does one ‘win’ at it?) as well as marriage. Now, infinite game purists might take issue here, since, according to Carse, because an infinite game has no end, it also has no (specific) beginning. Since there was technically a time before countries existed, or before the institute of marriage, and certainly before a particular marriage, one could argue that they are not really an infinite game.
And yet, regardless, they can be played as one. For our purposes, playing something as an infinite game basically entails the following: (1) that the purpose of play is to continue the play; (2) that players, boundaries, objectives, and rules, can and will be changed in order to continue the game.
Finite games have victory conditions. Infinite games do not.
I can play “becoming the most amazing hypnotist” as an infinite game. And yet I can position, within that game, any number of finite games, which keep things fun, and give us some sense of advancement toward an end, even if that end is the horizon, ever receding. And yet, this “non-achievement” of the end can be played in a spirit of fun, instead of frustration.
Children, playing tag on the street on a summer night, ever extending the play…
And so you’re in this infinite game of “life” of which we are all a part. And despite what anybody claims, there are no hard rules to this game, with the possible exception of “fleeing pain” and “pursuing pleasure” as basic assumptions about animal behavior. It seems like “wanting to feel good” is a basic and hardwired condition in the human animal, so we’ll go with that.
After that, we have choices. What do we want our lives to be about?
It’s at this point that I will return, once again, to Nietzsche. There are big, audacious, goals that we can set, such that we “will never achieve them in our lifetime” and all … the kind of goals that have an outcome we’ll never see, but find inspiring. And if you have one of those, great. If you don’t, though, I might suggest a look back at the “will to power” idea we discussed before — of becoming stronger.
If this were a “role-playing game” (RPG) we might be asked to select a character class, like fighter, magic-user, thief, or cleric. And that choice would allow us a certain array of options and limitations, and yet there are a whole bunch of skills and things that one will master along the way. These little skills (like learning to pick a lock, or use a battle axe) could be considered finite games: there are some criteria for when the skill has been learned.
There is a point in a certain business environment where, say, one has earned a Six Sigma Black Belt. Certain criteria must be met to do this, and when they are met, one is awarded the prize. The game is over. And yet, that new credential is then utilized to gain larger prizes, like bigger titles (with bigger salaries) and things like that. The finite game is getting the Black Belt. The infinite game here, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll call the “pursuit of wealth,” although it could be any number of things. The finite is contained within the infinite.
So, if I had to pick a class, I’d say, “magic-user” would be the best for me. And so, my infinite game would be something like “to become the ultimate magic-user” — which has no victory condition because there is always more “magic” to learn. Now, I tend to look at this quest as a personal one — I’m not in competition to become the “best” magic user in history. I’m looking to exhaust my potential.
The Nietzschean concept of the Ubermensch goes hand-in-hand with his concept of Selbstüberwindung, or self-overcoming. Essentially, this could be described as “overcoming one’s weaker aspects to emerge as a stronger self.” Any kind of feelings we have of envy or jealousy of others are actually indicators, says Nietzsche, of those things we strive to achieve ourselves, and can be useful for setting our compass.
Tom Bilyeu, creator of Quest Nutrition, and host of the Impact Theory podcast, is perhaps the best interviewer I know of today. He has an interesting self-identity that plays very much into what is mentioned above. He thinks of himself as a “learner” and therefore creates an identity (character class) that is beyond robust, and approaches antifragility.
In other words, when Tom encounters something outside of his grasp, or experiences some kind of ‘failure’ in his life, it feeds right back into the identity of the “learner” and strengthens that identity instead of diminishing it. It is no wonder that he is massively successful.
So, choosing your games is key. What do you want your life to be about?
To me, the magic-user is an artist. To create beauty in the world around us, to pursue “the aesthetic” whether in terms of sensory experience or narrative or something else, is a great infinite game, and the realm of the artist is one that is without hard rules. What does it look like to live this in the world?
Now it’s time to talk about a different Tom …
It is related that there is a character in an anime I really like — the anime called One Piece. And there is a character in this story called “Tom” who has this thing he’s always saying.
“Do it with a DON!!!”
Now, a word of explanation. A “DON” here is referring to a Japanese instance of onomatopoeia, and when something explosive happens in manga (the comic book version that the anime is usually derived from) there is a piece of kanji that represents that sound — DON!!! In the English-speaking world, we might say, “do it with a boom” or “do it with gusto” or something like that, but I’m a bit of a nerd, so I’m sticking with Tom’s version. The idea remains the same, though — if you’re going to do it, do it AWESOME-ly!!!
You can make a lunch, and you can make it boring, or you can make it the best lunch you can. When you learn a few secrets (just a few posts away), and can be there in-the-making-of-the-lunch, then the whole thing unfolds differently. The experience of making it, thinking about your future-self enjoying it, and then the experience of eating it later and savoring it, all serving to enrich existence.
There are all kinds of areas that can be level-ed up, if you will. If you have interest in fashion, or crafting, or any of various kinds of design, or gardening, or writing — there are opportunities to do those things well. To do them, as it were, with a DON!
I imagine if you’ve read this far, that you have some dreams in your life. And those dreams are probably not boring to you. There is probably a sense in which you’d really like to bring them about, and how would that show up in your world if it were at its ultimate expression?
My magic-user life is aimed at a future filled with gardens and food forests, with swing dancing and capoeira, with cob buildings and Earthships and the like. The quality of our relationships, the quality of the moments we craft, together … these can be raised up a level. Level up your world.
So, let me take a moment to slightly mis-quote Tony Robbins, in saying, “Esteem for the self comes from doing difficult things and succeeding.”
There is a related quote, from Wayne Dyer, that goes like this: “It is never crowded along the extra mile.”
The approach I’m suggesting above — that of being fully engaged in your life, to continue to become stronger and be rewarded with the pleasures of personal evolution and the material non-material benefits that come with it — is really about living life as a player with agency and not a mere victim of circumstance. It is about learning to put down our excuses, and let go of our fear, to actually SHOW UP and dare to make a change in the world on whatever scale we choose to play. It is about realizing the rules we’ve come to believe are only one set of rules, and that, in an infinite game, the rules MUST change … So why not get started now?
Doing it with a DON is taking “soul-inspired” action without fear or shame. And that can be to express ourselves boldly, without fear, in our basic presence in the world, or through our interactions with others, or through our creations. And doing-it-with-a-DON is also made easier by the realization that the world around us is largely a construct of our collective imaginations, and that we can be free to imagine things differently.
Being free from the prison of certainty allows us to entertain something far more expansive : possibility. And that offers a vast realm of playful exploration, filled with surprises. That’s a good thing. Finite games seek to minimize surprises, because they interfere with predictability, and interfere with bringing the game to an end. An infinite game requires surprises, because surprises are what allow the infinite game to continue.
The unknown, the unfamiliar, the unexplored — all filled with surprises, and the infinite player knows that a certain kind of treasure can be found here. Not only is it the case that the rules CAN change, but that they MUST change. And by changing the way we play this game, we can massively shift the grand outcome, and set the board for a new and more enriching level of interaction, exploration, and play.
To reach back to a recent post “…given the right circumstances, a new world (is) just as likely as an old one.”
If that sets off déjà vu for any of you, consider it something like a “glitch” in your personal Matrix. On some level, something has changed. Already.
The clip is under two minutes in length, but speaks volumes. Perhaps you can already see how all of this is connected.
Our next post will take us out of the realm of the theoretical / philosophical and into the realm of the practical so we can get out of the abstract and find out how cool this stuff can really be. So, the next post will be a “tech share” as one might say — a term I’ve borrowed from another community I belong to, but one that applies here just as well.
It’s time to start distributing power.
See you there!