What defines a game?

Purpose.

Purpose explains a game. It delimits a game. It makes the game.

A game is anything defined by at least one purpose – a computer game, a game of chess, watching a movie, a project or job, a relationship, family – even life itself. Different participants in a game have different purposes. While the sum of the purposes defines a common game, each person ha his own version of that game – defined by his purpose(s).

So when we talk about the importance of being able “to let go“, what are we letting go of? When a person is stuck in loss of girlfriend or enraged by loosing his job, he needs to be able to say “fuck it” and let it go. But what is “it”? The now ex-girlfriend? The job he had? No. The ex-girlfriend represented a game. The job was another game. Both had a defining purpose, and that is what he needs to let go of.

To enjoy the games we play, it is important to manufacture purposes, to give life to the games in order to reap the benefits – experiences and emotions. It is equally important to be able to stop creating a purpose – to let it go. Freedom is achieved by the ability to create and not create purposes, to go into and out of games freely.

Pride, ego and “having to be right” makes it harder to letting go and to create new purposes.

In order to get the full benefits of a game, one has to give value to that purpose. The more valuable a purpose is, the more serious the stakes are, the more benefits can be harvested. Self suggestion becomes an integral part. But one can get to the point where a game gets too real and becomes overwhelming. That’s when you pull out the tool called “fuck it”. Even when you die. But until that time you might as well get maximum enjoyment out of the games of life.

Picture taken from my balcony with Sony Xperia Z3