It was in London, on a Monday afternoon. It was still before the lockdown kept us all in confinement, and so we were sitting in an office at university, having an honest face to face conversation about work; about life with work; about the fact that although it might be true that “an unexamined life is not worth living,” it is f***ing hard to live when examining our lives. And that Socrates may have wanted to acknowledge that.
“There is one more book,” he said towards the end of our conversation. “It’s a strange book. It might be the weirdest book I know. It’s even weirder than de Sade or Nietzsche. But I’ve read it over thirty times, and each time I read it, I learn from it. I think it’s time you start and read it. When you’ve read the first couple of pages, let me know, and we’ll meet again.”
We said goodbye, and I ordered the book. Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, by James P. Carse. Little did we know that a couple of weeks later, we would all find ourselves confined. And that thinking of life in terms of finite and infinite games would become a strategy for turning those walls into bridges.
The book arrived quickly. I read; I kept reading; and by now I’ve already read parts of the book a couple of times. For instance, I’ve re-read it while waiting to be virtually let in to do a job interview. I’ve re-read it when thinking about creativity as method in the social sciences. And I’ve re-read it just for the pleasure of re-reading it. It is a strange book. A collection of propositions that offer a vision of life as play and possibilities. Megalomaniac? Perhaps. But I’d rather say profound, intuitive, and thought through to some greatest details.
Since meeting again face to face will have to wait, here are some bits and pieces that I would have thrown into our conversation. To be continued. How could it be different when being introduced to playing for the sheer purpose of continuing the play?
***
The book’s departure point is elegant:
“There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”
A seemingly simple proposition, whose elegance nonetheless competes with equations such as E=MC2. Simplicity at its best, holding tremendous powers, for better or for worse.
In the game equation, two things unite the two kinds of games: in both cases, no-one can play a game alone; and in both cases, no one can play who is forced to play. Whoever plays, plays freely.
What differentiates both games, in the most basic terms, is that while the infinite game will always go on, the finite game will come to an end when someone has won.
This was already enough fuel for me to run for some time. No-one can play a game alone. Whoever plays, plays freely. An infinite game is played for the purpose of continuing to play.
I sensed that the trick was to interpret life in view of these two game-strategies. And I realized that in too many areas, I had tricked myself into the rules of finite games. I had tricked myself into believing that I had to win that game. That I had, for instance, to clearly decide in which discipline I would continue working. That I had to decide whether I would continue to run an academic career or try something else. That I had to fix it all, with clear terms, clear targets, and clear ambitions. But I’m not interested in winning. I’m interested in learning. I’m interested in discovering. I’m interested in the poetic space. I’m interested in the silences. In the in-betweens. In the stories that connect that which has been disconnected. And so, the finite game strategy didn’t trigger the right assets for me. Instead, it kept me into a loop, contained within boundaries that I craved to transgress. What our conversation sparked was the possibility of finding ways to transgress those boundaries without destroying the whole thing.
“Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.”
What I sensed was that the trick is to try and see where the infinite games are waiting to be played. Not everything can be an infinite game, but in many situations, the option is to the player. So, the trick is to shift, where possible, from a finite game mentality, to an infinite game mentality. It’s not about relegating our ambitions. It’s about seeing those ambitions from a different angle. With the infinite game mentality, the gains are no longer a disciplinary identity. The gains are no longer the articles that I want to have published. Nor are the gains the next job I will manage to secure. Instead, the gains become first and foremost the conversation. The genuine conversation. The conversation that makes me write these articles in the first place. The conversation that these articles may spark. The conversation that happens just because we felt like having a conversation. Whoever “we” may be.
From the infinite game perspective, the gains become the process of creation, and ever more so, the process of co-creation. And who says creation says messy process. Creation comes with many silences, and with many in-betweens. Creation comes with a lot of rough edges, with unfinished sentences, with unfinished thoughts. Creation is working with raw material. It is working with sounds—noise even—instead of words; it is working with threads instead of material; it is working with muds instead of bricks. But during the creative process, words emerge from the noise and become stories; threads become materials, which become cloths, or a kite that flies the winds above the horizon. During the creative process, mud does become bricks, and bricks become shelters, and bridges. The essence of creation is to play with boundaries while finding meaning in what we do. Be it in telling the forgotten stories of unknown citizens. Be it in highlighting the affective essence of institutional rules, showing paths where emotions flow like water, connecting the personal with the public, the rational with the affective, the juridical with the political, the poetic with the scientific. But also, the essence of creation is to embark on a journey with unknown destinations.
“The only purpose of the game is to prevent it from coming to an end.”
Now, it does happen that energy runs out, and that what once was a shelter becomes a wall, a fence, sometimes a prison. But the game goes on. And so, it’s about finding the bits and pieces that will make this whole into a meaningful whole. Beyond disenchantments. Beyond doubts. Beyond vengeance. Beyond anger. Beyond fatigue. Beyond resignation. It is about finding the spark in the machine. That tiny little bit of electricity that can move loads, turning the wheels, getting us on the move of discovery and admiration, bringing laughter on the table, there where seriousness threatened to take over.
“The finite play for life is serious; the infinite play of life is joyous. … The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish.”
The finite play for life. The infinite play of life. The difference lies in a tiny preposition. One letter difference. But that one letter may turn, in time, a wall into a bridge.
And yet, although the finite game mentality may be somewhat closed and confined, the two elements that unite it with the infinite game mentality may be the bridge between the two. One never plays a game alone. And whoever plays, plays freely. In these times of confinement, where mobility and social connections are being reduced beyond our will, the finite game mentality may help to cope with the load of our new daily life. For instance, dividing a day into realistic tasks is a finite game. It is serious business. It is playing within boundaries. But winning that game is joyful, and enables the other game to continue, too.
“Finite games can be played within an infinite game.”
Perhaps, the trick of playing the infinite game is to identify where playing a finite game within the infinite game will open the horizon instead of closing it. In view of continuing to play the infinite game, we all play an archive of finite games. Each of them being a game in themselves. Played with some others. Played freely. Played with rules known prior to playing the game. And ending when someone has won. And each of these games participates in the infinite picture of the ongoing game of life. It’s a matter of perspective. The finite game is a step. The infinite game the path.
Finite games can help bring things closer to home. They can be a call to action—for instance: write a little every day, no matter what; spend at least one day a week researching the archive. They can create moments of connections—for instance: engage in a job opening procedure, for the sheer pleasure of connecting. They can make space to practice creativity, in whatever form. In the end, finite games can be that spark in the machine. The threshold that allows one to move from a finite perception into new horizons of play and possibilities.
