The range of human passions runs both broad and deep.
If it can be climbed up, slid down, flown, or ridden; if it can be thrown, caught, stacked up, knocked down, pushed, or pulled; if it can be assembled, dissembled, timed, measured, predicted, or drawn at random; if it can be discovered, hidden, organized, jumbled, or deciphered; whatever we can do with our environment, we will do it.
And whatever we do, we will make a game of it. Homo habilis, or “skilled human,” was the early hominid first associated with tool use. We, homo sapiens, are the “thinking humans.” But we can understand ourselves equally well as homo ludens, the game-playing humans.
The games we play, and the communities and subcultures we create around them, make us who we are. Within our games can be found all of our humanity. They teach us cooperation and competition. Communities built around games help us to belong, but also to stand out. Playing sports, we lose ourselves in the moment, achieve a flow state, and brush up against the infinite—our whole being a machine, mind fused to body as one, tuned to one activity in real time, and also outside of time. But games also teach us to strategize, to think long-term, to aim toward goals hours, weeks, or years away. Simon Sinek’s concept of the infinite game, with ever-changing rules and players, is as good a metaphor for life as any.
We tend to assign an air of seriousness to big games with mass appeal—once normal games that have been elevated to cultural events: the NBA Finals, World Cup, or Tour de France. And we sometimes denigrate the most niche games and communities as silly, nerdy, a waste of time. But I think the most niche pursuits reveal the purest beauty in our game play.
The next time you see the cup stacking, cheese rolling, or Tetris world championships on YouTube; or the cornhole world series on ESPN 2; or an ad for a local Magic, The Gathering tournament, don’t think of how many hours the competitors have spent with their plastic cups, or how many dollars on their card decks. They aren’t trading their time and money only to be the best at Tetris or cornhole. They’re trading it for belonging, community, and achievement in general, but expressed narrowly. And for a brush with the infinite.
sabbatiblog 