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The search for a better understanding of how society plays and evolves, from a social, economic and cultural point of view, is a never ending process.
We can also define this search with a single term: discovery.

What triggers this search?! Well, many things, obviously. But one of them is the dynamic nature of things. Everything changes over time. Including ourselves. We are all players in a game of change and transformation. And when enters the scene a so called ‘competitor’, we call out ‘a multi player game’. It’s one of those games that engulfs our social lives every day.

Now, there are multiple ways of playing this ‘multi player’ game. Personal DNA, inherited and acquired culture, life experience, all contribute to what type of players we are. Or should I perhaps rephrase ‘what type of players we choose to be’(?).

According to James P. Carse (’Finite and Infinite Games’, 1986) there are two types of players: those that focus on strict rules, and we call them ‘the finite players’ and those that have a more ‘open’ attitude added into the equation: ‘the infinite players’.

The finite players are like a sports team on a path to winning a match: there is a finite number of players and resources and one finite objective: to win that specific game. They exclusively play to WIN a game that has a ‘beginning’, a ‘middle’ and an ‘end’. So, in that end there’s a ‘winner’ and a loser.

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The infinite players are open to change: change the rules, change the players - that can be known or not known(!) - and the objective is not to win a game, but to STAY IN THE GAME as much as possible.

Are we talking about the game of life? Are we talking about the rules of engagement in competitive activities, business, social or cultural areas? The answer is fueled via pondering another question: how does LIFE actually work?!

Aren’t we - in fact - all players in games that have no end, or, if you prefer a business term, no true ‘finish line’? Are we ‘truly’ in competition with the others? Are we really so desperate to ‘win’ in friendship or marriage? Are we so eager to win in business?

How does one define the ‘winning’ in marriage?! How does one define the ‘winning in business’, when the rules for everyone / every business are so different, and - most importantly - not agreed upon to in advance?

Playing with a finite mindset in an infinite game is not the most natural and efficient way of actually playing the game. Some predictable things will, sooner or later, happen: the decline of trust, coperation and innovation and the lost of motivation to play an unnatural, abstract, unfulfilling and incomplete game.

So, what do we choose, then? Or, have we already chosen!?