I got this idea from the Bean, a.k.a. Ender’s Shadow, the character brought to life by the imagination of Orson Scott Card in his two books series: The Ender’s Saga and The Shadow Quintet. [I highly recommend both series.]
Ender is the brilliant child general who defeats the alien enemy only to realize that by knowing his enemy he has come to love them. “I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
Ender was trained to win the game of war. Ender’s genius was his ability to create extremely effective team drawing out his mates’ skills. The Ender’s Saga follows Ender’s resurrection from a killer into a lover of species and life at large.
Bean, his loyal captain has a different genius. His intelligence-enhance genes combined with his street-smart survival skills knows that those who win the game are those you own the game.
But, I thought, what if instead of owning the game, I get to source the game? What game would I source? If you were at source, what game-world would you source?
Because any game that is designed to be won is oriented towards achieving an particular outcome. You have a goal, you want to ‘get there’, for something or someone, even yourself to be a certain way. When I have this, I will… be happy, be able to rest. Or, when these things are in place, people will stop murdering each other.
Playing a goal-oriented game ultimately leads to violence. Self-violence through manipulation. External violence through control. You are chasing after a future fantasy, motivated only by your constant failure to reach it.
As a game owner, you would set up rules of engagement for the players to behave the way you confidently think will lead to the desired outcome. Then you have to enforce those rules. Overtly, the effective way is with social reprimands, fines and as a last resort armed police. Covertly, you may have developed skills to enforce your rules using psycho-emotional threat of punishment and reward. There is a trade. If you follow the rules, you get love. If you do not act according to what I want, I withdraw such love. Many parents unconsciously resort to grooming their children that way, in the absence of alternative.
One alternative is the game called ‘evolution of consciousness’. It is an infinite game, a terminology coined by James P. Carse in his antonym book Finite and Infinite Game. The contextual orientation of an infinite game is setting up the rules of engagement so that the game keeps playing ad infinitum.
The ‘Evolution of Consciousness’ is about Being Yourself, meaning being your Stand in action. Your game is who you are. Your game evolves as your consciousness evolves to hold more of your stand.
You enter a dance not only with consciousness herself, but with your fellow players. The more you learn to dance, the more interesting you become to E.C.C.O. to offer you different rides.
Yes, it is like DisneyWorld! You have access to all these rides to take more responsibility for who you are, and for the games that you play.
Evidently, there are still rules of engagements. Abandoning the structure of rules of engagement is often only a reaction to the violence previously experiences in the ‘Win The Game’ game.
But, the rules of engagements have a completely different purpose. You set them up not to control behaviors but to enable evolutionary processes in yourself and in others.
Each new version of yourself source a new game, potentially liberating other people’s evolutionary game in themselves.
Ready to play?
