Making games together > playing games alone
/By Duncan Anderson and Kat Gentry. To see all blogs click here.
Summary:
Independent innovation
Your life is yours to live as you wish. Be in control of your choices. Make your own game.
Emergence
Good friendships make you better than you otherwise would have been. Good teams do things individuals could not do independently.
Expansion
If you combine the power of independent innovation (1) with emergence (2), both the individual and the team grow way more than they otherwise would.
Prior watching (7 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16W7c0mb-rE
Analogies:
Life isn’t about ordering from the menu well; it’s about making new items for the menu!
Life isn’t about playing ‘the Chess game of life’ well; it’s about making a new board, new pieces and new moves!
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Details
1. Independent innovation.
Your life is yours to live as you wish. Be in control of your choices. Make your own game.
Almost nothing we do today has anything to do with what humans did even just 500 years ago.
The vast majority of what you are doing was made up by other humans… this means you get to make up what you do too!!!
You don’t have to spend all day hunting and gathering so you don’t starve. You don’t have to procreate as soon as possible and as much as possible to make sure the human race doesn’t die out.
You can do whatever you want.
What 15 year old Duncan thought:
There is a set menu in life: one could be an accountant, a lawyer, an engineer, a teacher etc.
People were born with different innate interests.
As such: Good Life = 1. Figure out your innate interests * 2. Order well from the menu.
IMO this is playing someone else’s game.
What 35 year old Duncan thinks:
Life isn’t about ordering from the menu well; it’s about making new items for the menu!
Life isn’t about playing ‘the Chess game of life’ well; it’s about making a new board, new pieces and new moves!
IMO the more you know about most things the more interesting they are. Eg knowing more about sport makes it more interesting. Eg knowing more about wine makes it more interesting. Eg knowing more about education makes it more interesting. Eg knowing more about design makes it more interesting.
One is born knowing nothing so nothing is interesting. Ie you have no innate interests. Are you bored? Try learning about something and then talk to people about it!
“The world is inherently interesting. If you think it’s boring, it's because you don’t understand it, not because it is uninteresting.”
I went from knowing stuff all about the world as a 15 year old and as such almost everything being ‘boring’. Slowly I’ve learned more and more about the world, now I know some stuff about all parts of the world, and slowly everything has become more and more interesting!
This is one of the best magic tricks I know of!!!!!!!!!!!! Imagine if everything could be interesting… well IMO almost anything can!
As such: Good Life = 1. Learn about the world and thereby continually build your interests * 2. More about making new items for the menu and ordering off the new menu
IMO this is building and playing your own game.
What will 55 year old Duncan think?
NFI, but I’m assuming it will be massively different to 35 year old Duncan!
“Work is the best of times, work is the worst of times.”
I work with a computer at a desk. From the outside what I do looks exactly the same as what I was doing 5 years ago. However it’s wildly beyond the best thing I could conceive 5 years ago. IMO words don’t exist to describe what I feel I do for work, hence Maslatonic Eudication.
Sometimes I think of the world through this lens:
Happiness can be biology led: eg eat chocolate are happy, get massage are happy. Or,
Happiness can be thought led: eg get and A on a test are happy, eg win sport game are happy.
IMO one can create stories that make the best and worst feelings and the most meaning you've ever experienced.
Eg Win the AFL Grand final and cry tears of happiness. Lose the Grand final and cry tears of sadness.
This is all totally made up, has zero to do with what humans were doing 500 years ago. This is thought led happiness / sadness.
What you do with great partners? You invent new games (eg AFL) and you get to win the Grand Final every day!
Plus you get to constantly invent and play new and better games.
Jingle: Don’t be stuck with the game society gave you, make your own game! Haters gonna hate, players gonna play, and inventors gonna make new better games!
At work IMO you can build stories that give you the best and worst feelings you have ever experienced.
Personal story:
Now I think that I can build whatever job I want. My ‘job’ is making the job that I want to do. A good friend / partner is someone who makes new games, puts new items on the menu, makes me better… And that I laugh with. The value I can get out of work isn't like a good day at school or university, it's if far far far beyond the best thing I could comprehend. A good friend now isn't like what a good friend was when I was 20. It's everything that a good friendship at 20 was plus mega amounts more that were beyond my wildest ability to comprehend. A good friendship at 20 now makes up about 5% of goodness I now get from a good friendship.
My life isn't the best thing I could conceive of as a 20 year old… It's wildly better than better than anything I could imagine at the time I was 20.
While from the outside my job looks the same, ie Duncan working at a desk with a laptop, what I do now I wasn't able to do 5 years ago. It's not that it would have taken longer or would have been worse quality, what I do for work today is IMO an order of magnitude better than the best thing I could do at work 5 years ago. It's like saying I was thinking about sand castles 5 years ago and now trying to build the internet.
2. Emergence
Good friendships make you better than you otherwise would have been. Good teams do things individuals could not do independently.
“People are the best of times, people are the worst of times.”
“The purpose of a friend (partner) is to make you better than you otherwise would have been.” Socrates
IMO learning about 90%+ of things makes them more interesting.
You learn much better if you have an intellectual companion.
You + another good person = both parties are upgraded more than they would have been by themselves.
This is proper mutually positive sum stuff (see Partnership Economics).
To be clear, it’s about ultimately creating new levels that don't exist. It’s about creating new menu items, it’s about new moves for pieces, about new pieces and new boards!
Example:
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are two of the wisest people I know of.
They probably already had the mindset of ‘I will make my own game, thank you very much’ before they met each other
They met each other 60 years ago and started systematically upgrading each other. They have been at upgrading each other for 60 years!
If they didn’t meet each other they still be smart well read people, but IMO they wouldn’t be two of the wisest people on earth if they DIDN’T meet each other and systematically upgrade each other.
Outcome:
This is making a new menu item to order: friendships that upgrade each other!
15 year old Duncan had no idea that one could systematically upgrade yourself and others.
And if I somehow did know about this I probably would have thought ‘eww, yuck, sounds like secondary school. How about I NOT do this with my friends!’
Now 100% of work ‘friendships’ / partnerships have upgrading each other and 75% of non-work friendships.
Done well, I’ve found the menu item of upgrading yourself and others makes things so much more interesting, so much more rewarding, yay!
Friendship Taxonomy:
Downside life circumstances (eg get sick someone will be there for you)
Loneliness
Companionship / sharing interest / children raising alone
Building something together
[new level / menu item] Growing each other
[new level / menu item] Creating new mental planes that don't exist. Eg IMO the way we now talk about education at Edrolo isn’t the best I could imagine 2 years ago, it’s way beyond my best possible conception :)!
3. Expansion
If you combine the power of independent innovation (1) with emergence (2), both the individual and the team grow way more than they otherwise would.
There are 100 billion neurons in a human brain. They are yours to do with as you wish. By working with a person who is also 'making up the game' you do not just add another 100 billion neurons to the equation. You can essentially make 100 billion * 100 billion new connections that would never have been made if you hadn't worked together.
Expansion of the analogies… that leads to expansion:
The Chess analogy in choice detail:
If you are playing Chess there is the board, the pieces and the moves they can do. IMO most people are just trying to play the game in front of them well.
I stayed off by making up some new moves for pieces.
Now I try to make new boards, new pieces and new moves.
It's honestly the best fun ever.
IMO to have the most rewarding game, play with others, not a single player game.
But also have others make the board, the pieces and the moves too!
IMO there is no limit to the games you can create. IMO your mind is unconstrained for empathy, creativity / problem solving and communication.
This means you can give yourself and others the best feeling they have ever had (winning the Grand final).
And tomorrow you make a better game with a new high water mark and again you give each other the best feeling they have ever had.
The Menu analogy in more detail:
Most people are just ordering what is on the menu. IMO life is much more about making the menu.
Today I made a new menu with items that are better than ever before.
Then I ordered theses items and had the best feeling I've ever had.
Tomorrow I'm going to make a new menu with ever better items… Ad infinitum.
Then show friends how to not order off the menu, and help them create their own menus
Then make a super-epic menu together
Taxonomy:
1: Play chess alone
2. Play chess together
3. Make your own new game and play it
Benefits you
various second order consequences depending on your actions
4. Make a new game with others and play it
Benefits you and your team
various second order consequences depending on your actions
5. Make a new game with others that increases human capital, and play it
Benefits you, your team, and the world
Making games together > playing games alone
If there was one thing to take away:
IMO you can be in the driver's seat. Try making a new menu item / board piece.
And if you don’t have inspiration for making a new item them try learning about something with someone, eg the thing with the most attention in the news media for example the Hong Kong protests. I find that inspiration comes from learning!