Sublime

Is it a Wall Street world or a Community world? A Prisoner’s Dilemma world or a Stag Hunt world? Part of it comes down to just what we call it. That’s how powerful hidden defaults can be.

Infinite play is inherently paradoxical, just as finite play is inherently contradictory.

The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish.

“because life is not about extensions. It’s finite. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that’s the same in a group. Once you’ve gone through that process, what are we doing now? We’re rehashing. What is it in you that doesn’t want this group to end?”

Each moment is not the beginning of a period of time. It is the beginning of an event that gives the time within it its specific quality. For an infinite player there is no such thing as an hour of time. There can be an hour of love, or a day of grieving, or a season of learning, or a period of labor.

Infinite players die. Since the boundaries of death are always part of the play, the infinite player does not die at the end of play, but in the course of play.

“And this is the truth of any game—it can only exist at the moment that it is being played. It’s the same with being an actor. In the end, all we can ever know is the game that was played, in the only world that we know.”

The rarity and preciousness of human life. The inevitability of death. The awesome and indelible power of our actions. The inescapability of suffering.