If winning becomes too important in a game, change the rules to make it more fun.
Kevin Kelly
My girlfriend Api and I applied this to Jenga yesterday. Instead of competing with each other in the usual way, we made the new goal of the game to collaborate to make the tallest tower. In the new game, you could stabilize the tower with your hands when withdrawing blocks. We’d use a tape measure periodically to see how high the tower got.
The game became a lot more fun. We almost made it to three feet tall.
Maybe next time…
It strikes me that this simple piece of advice from Kevin Kelly can be applied pretty broadly, to make the world a better place:
- What if strongmen-type leaders stopped trying to “win” territory for their countries, and instead worked to make their citizens’ lives better?
- What if high-schoolers stopped trying to win popularity, and instead focused on finding a group of people they could be the most themselves with, like in this song?
- What if we stopped seeing life in terms of “immortality projects” we can succeed or fail at (e.g. reproducing genes, achieving something big) and instead saw it as a fleeting amazing experience we are lucky to have, and make positive ripples in?
- What if business leaders saw the goal of their business as not making the most money, but providing the most value for society?
- What if we stopped comparing ourselves to our friends, and instead saw the goal of friendship as seeing one another deeply?
I recently turned off “social” features from my substack accounts. I realized I was becoming too focused on “winning” subscribers and likes. For me, a more fun goal for the game of writing online is to catalyze meaningful conversations.
Thank you Kevin Kelly, for the amazing reframe on the idea of life as a game. Yes, life can be seen as a game, but it need not be a competitive one.
After reading one of my poems to a classroom of college freshman, I grabbed a coffee with one of the students, and my friend John, who was the professor. The student and I both went to the same high school, and we reflected on the competitiveness in that environment.
John asked, “What do we replace competition with?”
We paused, and pondered.
Then John said, “Celebration.”
My friend Jonas brought to my attention the subtle difference between the words “good” and “great.” Baked into slogans like “Make America Great Again” is a view of life as a zero-sum game. Making America great implies winning in a global competition. I’d love it if more people saw life as a cooperative game, a global potluck. Making America good rather than great would mean that America contributes a delicious dish to this potluck — a game where the goal is to have fun, where every country gets a seat at the table and enough food to eat.
I think we forget that at the end of the game of life, we can’t keep the “winnings” we’ve amassed — whether these are gold coins, accomplishments, children, fame, or anything else.
We’re all going to the same place, six feet under. All we can do, when we look back on our lives, is be able to say, “I’ve celebrated, I’ve been grateful, I’ve contributed.”
danscreativeoulet 