Game of Life

Based on the few decades I've been around and the experiences I’ve had (college, parents, friends, college, job, etc)… from these experiences, I’m of the opinion, that most things in life can be thought of as a game.

Different domains of life: romance, friendships, career choices, economic choices, can be looked at as situations that come with their own set of meta rules and strategies that make sense within that framework (I also take this moment to clarify that these games are not all similar or zero sum). They range throughout from competitive; co-operative; semi co-operative.

Competitive - Dating a monogamous person(starting to date them). Not a great example, will come back to it.

Semi-coop - career progress, Politics

Coop - mutually meaningful friendships/strong relationships

(Though not to forget) - life differs from games in a significant way: games are usually inconsequential, while life choices/strategies may or may not be seen as such depending on the way one approaches life.

Unlike games, at the start of play, the rules to a particular engagement might not be clear. And the ‘game’ of life, contrary to its name is not really a game. It doesn’t start with rules, the players don’t know that they are entering the magic circle. They are thrust into situations (often unwillingly) and are expected to thrive/survive.

Games come with a few kinds of elements:

• Resources: Enable you to have more choices. Your special abilities, money, time, networks etc are all a resource you can tap into.
• Choices: Let you decide what to do with those resources
• Players: Other people participating in the game
• and Rules: Dictate how the choices we make lead to outcomes

Resources

Resources are something we understand intuitively but I want to go into a few kinds and the benefits they offer. They are of two main types, exhaustible and inexhaustible.

1. Exhaustible resources are the kinds of resources that reduce on using. Money, energy, time
2. Inexhaustible resources are things like skills, intellect, networks

1. Based on your choices, you might want to treat Resources as interconvertible to some extent

• Money -> Time: By buying the service of others(Househelp, Deliverypeople, ) and thus freeing yourself of doing that labour.  
• Time -> Skills: Getting better at playing the guitar, doing origami, and writing code by investing time in practice
• Effort -> Fit body: Going to the gym/working out is an easy example of converting effort into bodily health.

2. You unlock more Rules (read recipes) of interconversion as you discover more of the metarules.

• like it is possible to learn to fart musically(idk if its true, but I'd very much like it to be)
• Finding out that a certain coding class offers better rates of learning

Sometimes these discoveries are also fascinating and heartbreaking:

• It is not very hard to train babies to have perfect pitch but very hard to pick the skill up as an adult.

Players

Career Paths

Chapter: There are two types of career paths

My close friend Advait posits that there are two types of career paths. One that’s musicians/artists/researchers/entrepreneurs and the other that is most people in corporate jobs etc.

The key distinction is that people who want their own work to be seen as their own are often on the artist track. They have narcissistic tendencies towards their own work. This attachment to the fruits of their labour makes them pursue career paths where the possibility of such works being solely credited to them is the norm.

The other group is okay with letting their work exist without their names attached to it. An important clarification here is that ‘the quality of work’ is an independent dimension and can broadly be separated from the attachment to the work. There are people who would not care about their name on the products but are excellent at what they do. They can be passionate, driven and excel in their domains without needing to be plastered all over it

It is entirely about how people derive meaning in their lives. Some people want to be known for their work while others don’t care either way. If work forms a significant part of identity then it is likely that a person might be more inclined towards the ‘Rockstar path’.

Info box: Don’t tell anyone you like them over noodles. Nobody looks great doing that.

PS: or a taco/Sub