The Infinite Game

THE INFINITE GAME

Author James P. Carse lays this out beautifully in his book Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, and sums it up with this quote “A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”

In the ordinary world, someone wins, and someone loses. Everyone wants to win; no one wants to lose. Even when “everyone gets a trophy” we are still saying that getting a trophy is more important than just playing for the sake of play. By emphasizing everyone is a winner, we are still making losing a bad thing. In the ordinary world, we have a finished product, an answer, proven steps.  You can point to a definite ending and outcome and say, “I am done.” We hold ourselves as nouns, I am this and I want to be that. We are in fact verbs, always becoming, a process.  In the nonordinary the goal is learning, expanding and growing.  You are never done. You will always be evolving, becoming more aware and increasing your capacity for pleasure, love, lifeforce and all things good. You are always at the edge of the unknown and pushing your comfort zone with the knowing that it is worth it.

We get to let go of seeing the world as a zero-sum game and embrace the joy of playing. This also means letting go of perfection, fear of making a mistake and of fixing ourselves. These are just distractions and impediments to enjoying life and the process of continually becoming.

Continuing to play also means keeping everyone in the game and maximizing the game for everyone. You have to play with others.

In other words, you can’t do it alone.

“No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character… this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons.”
― James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility