Sublime

The fact of life and the reality of death give the human story its dramatic tension.

War is not an act of unchecked ruthlessness but a declared contest between bounded societies, or states. If a state has no enemies it has no boundaries. To keep its definitions clear a state must stimulate danger to itself.

we are a small part of an interconnected universe.

To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.

Any given finite game can be played many times, although each occasion of its occurrence is unique. The game that was played at that time by those players can never be played again.

major purpose,

A slave can have life only by giving it away. “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (Jesus).

This is your life. There is nothing else. But what there is—and what you do—binds you to the world in ways that are deeper than you can ever disentangle.

If finite games must be externally bounded by time, space, and number, they must also have internal limitations on what the players can do to and with each other. To agree on internal limitations is to establish rules of play.