In the Western World many people play the Analytic Game. The Analytical Game resolves the conflict between the Facts of the Senses and the Models, Rules and Norms of the Human Prediction System, the Expectation (often called Thinking).
The complementary Game is what Will McWhinney and his friend Burkhard Sievers, called the Game that Creates New Games.
James P. Carse (A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility) calls this game the Infinite Game. Perhaps a much better name would be the Game of Life.
Infinite players play with rules and boundaries. They include them as part of their playing. They aren’t taking them serious, and they can never be trapped by them, because they use rules and boundaries to play with.
The players are always busy to continue the Game of Life by creating new Games.
They love to play but the aim is not to win because winning ends the game.
The Infinite Game is a Game where the Imagination and the Emotions are playing their roles. The Emotions e-valua-te and the Imagination creates.
A very important distinction between the two Games is Context. The Analytic Game is “above the Context”.
It uses the Abstractions of Maps and Diagrams. When you use a map to travel you will never see the real territory.
The Game of Life is “in the Context”. In this game Life is a Journey. You will meet people you will never meet when your life is completely planned and you will see places nobody has seen before.
Life Above the Context is dull and predictable.
Life In the Context is an Adventure and Full of Risks.
Evaluation is a Context-Dependent Process. It takes into account that every Situation is unique and needs a unique approach.
The Game of Life is about Improvisation. You listen to the Rythm and the central Theme and start your own variation that is “in line with the flow”.
Sometimes you are the person who starts a new rhythm and a new theme and others follow you. You are there at the right time and the right moment.
Timing is essential in the Game of Life.
The Game of Life is about the Tao and Synchronicity. Things happen by accident but the events are meaningful. They are created by the Imagination.
The Game of Life is about Magic. You are the creator of your own reality and your creation bounces back on you. Reality produces signs but the signs are the result of your own creation.
Your personal Magic becomes much stronger when you have a vision and you believe in this vision.
The Game of Life is about belief and not about truth. You know there is no eternal truth because everything changes but behind the changes is an emerging pattern.
The pattern is chaotic and structured. It arise out of the Whole and moves back into the Whole.
The Game of Life is the game of AND. Life is a contradiction, an eternal conflict, a dilemma because meaning is created by “making the difference‘. It is the Comm-Union of Diversity.
The Game of Life is about Spirit (Imagination) and Soul (Emotion).
The Game of Life is Immortal. When the Fire of the compassion of your soul and the Light of your spirit becomes One with the stream of Creation you will live for ever.
The Game of Life is eternal and new Games are created all the time.
The Games are not competitive but collaborative.
The Game is fueled by Ideas and Ideas are abundant. Some of them stay for a long time. Other ideas just arise and move away like clouds in the Wind.
The Game is Life is a Field. It contains (Standing) Waves and Waves merge without any problem.
The Game of Life is the Game of Music, Dance and Poetry. It does not force. It gives you the freedom of your own interpretation, your own mood.
The Game of Life is a Spiraling Spiral.
The Game of Life is about Values and Quality.
Your personal Values help you to evaluate and Quality is what you want to accomplish.
Quality is the complement of Quantity.
It is something the Numbers and the Names are unable to Express.
LINKS
About the theories of Will McWhinny
