Is there really even a game?

Much of what has existed in all our lifetimes can be considered games: economics (saturated with game theory), politics (winning/losing as primary metaphor), education (guessing what the teacher wants), or even religion (betting on believing in the "right" one). Truth be told, "game" is a metaphor to describe how these "systems" function. But what happens, when nobody wants to play anymore?

Just doing your own thing, in the face of or even in spite of conventional wisdom, is a way of opting out of the game. Maybe the alternatives being developed are games as well, but they strike me as all having a feature that most games do not have: cooperation. Games are primarily about winning and losing (which is why politics is the most obvious of the currently existing games), they are competitive (enter economics), they contain elements of chance that need to be minimized (education) and they entail a certain risk (religion). Well, there is risk outside of games, just as there are elements of chance (luck) in every aspect of our lives. What remains, then is the competition aspect.

There are times and places for competition, to be sure. Adolescents are full of it, and they most likely need to be. Grown-ups get over that; elders recognize it for what it is. One of the reasons we buy into the competition myth is that there was a time in the history of humanity when it appeared to be a natural and good thing. You might have guessed, I believe that was in the adolescent phase of our development ... I happen to think it's time for us, as a species, to simply grow up. In other words, competition is not a necessary part of most aspects of our lives.

Families, work environments, clubs, churches, groups of all kinds only function when everyone pulls together. Even on a larger scale, groups of families constitute a neighborhood, similarly interested clubs benefit from exchange. Cooperation is an essential part of their successful functioning. What we are finding is that cooperation is beneficial in more and more areas. Our problem is that we don't have a lot of experience with cooperating because we've too long been conditioned to believe that we have to compete.

Competition is based on seeing differences in others and emphasizing that difference. Cooperation is based on seeing similarities in others and emphasizing what all have in common. Considering that the world is getting smaller every day and that we are discovering more and more how similar we are as human beings, it makes sense to shift our thinking somewhat to a cooperative frame of mind. How can I (we) help someone else? How can others help us (me)? What can we do together that we can't do alone? These are the questions that simply have to take priority.

The good thing is that there are lots of folks who are just doing it. They are getting together, they are cooperating, and they are becoming increasingly visible because what they are doing is good, right, and successful, even according to standards that they themselves may not consider sacrosanct. A world in which cooperation plays a bigger role is fundamentally different from one based on competition. All transition is difficult, but the advantage of becoming more cooperative is that there is a pretty good chance that you'll find someone who can give you hand.