The Infinite Game
From creation, we humans have always lived as individuals co-existing within communities. Our advancement as a species can be primarily attributed to our collective efforts and collaboration towards the common goal(s) of survival and evolution. However, for reasons contrary to that which always ensured we not only survive but thrive, we now see ourselves on the cusp of an existential crisis. We’ve somewhat departed from that which served us well, becoming more individualistic as opposed to collaborative; selfish as opposed to selfless. We’ve become blindsided by playing the infinite game of life using finite rules.
In 1987, Dr. James P. Carse’s work articulated two types of games - finite and infinite games. He defined the finite game as a game of known players, fixed rules and an agreed upon object e.g football. There’s always a beginning, middle and an end, and for someone to win, the another has to lose. Conversely, in an infinite game, there are known and unknown players, meaning new players can join at anytime. The rules are changeable and evolving, and the objective is to perpetuate the game. Going by Dr. Carse’s work, it turns out we’re players in infinite games everyday of our lives - You can win an election but you can’t win politics, You can finish top of your class but you can’t win education; You can live from one day to the next, but you can’t win the game of life.
Today’s increasingly individualistic mindset which has narrowed our vision more on self, and myopically focuses more on winning or being the best makes it abundantly clear that we’re playing an infinite game with a finite mindset. When we play to win in a game that has no finish line, it only depicts that we don’t understand the game we’re playing in, let alone the rules to play by. Just as the sky is big enough that birds fly and never touch, the playing field is big enough that us humans can be largely successful without competing against one another.
Our world has become toxically competitive, and we’ve gradually departed from a collective and infinite mindset that worked for the greater good and advancement of the species. We’re increasingly embracing a finite and competitive mindset where winning isn’t satisfactory enough except we see someone else lose which is laughable because there’s no such thing as winning in the infinite game of life which we unconsciously play everyday. Competition is meant to serve as motivation for innovation, and when we compete mainly to beat other competitors, it defeats its purpose and the greater good of the collective - it destroys cooperation, innovation and trust amongst ourselves.
Bear in mind, “the infinite game is not the absence of finite games”, its the context to which those games exist that matter. There’s nothing wrong with metrics, tracking progress or winning but the question we ought to always ask ourselves is - “To what end?”. “You want to make money, to what end?” Most significant people from Andrew Carnegie to Fela Kuti have always anchored their purpose to the greater good of the collective. Obsessively continuing down a finite path is fraught with the danger of an existential crisis.
Remember - “Do not take the game of life too seriously. No one is getting out of it alive.” - Elbert Hubbard
Peace, Love & Light,