| There was a magician. He lived
deep in the mountains and the forests, and he had thousands of sheep.
But the problem was that the sheep were afraid of the magician because
every day the sheep were seeing that one of them was being killed for
his breakfast, another was being killed for his lunch. So they used to
run away from the magician's place, and it was a difficult job to find
them in the vast forest. Being a magician, he used magic. He hypnotized all the sheep and told different sheep...to some, "You are a man, you need not be afraid. It is only the sheep who are going tobe killed and eaten, not you. You are a man just like I am." Some other sheep were told, "You are a lion -- only sheep are afraid. They escape, they are cowards. You are a lion; you would prefer to die than to run away. You don't belong to these sheep. So when they are killed it is not your problem. They are meant to be killed, but you are the most loved of my friends in this forest." In this way he told every sheep different stories, and from the second day, the sheep stopped running away from the house. They still saw other sheep being killed, butchered, but it was not their concern. Somebody was a lion, somebody was a tiger, somebody was a man, somebody was.... Nobody was a sheep except the one who was being killed. This way, without keeping servants, he managed thousands of sheep. They would go into the forest for their food, for their water, and they would come back home, believing always one thing: "It is some sheep who is going to be killed, not you. You don't belong to this mob. You are a lion -- respected, honored, a friend of the great magician." The problems of the magician were solved. |
| There are at least two kind of
games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players plays with boundaries. Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue. To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. The finite play for life is serious; the infinite play of life is joyous. The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish. No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. Our social existence has... an inescapably fluid character. ...we are not the stones over which the stream of the world flows; we are the stream itself. Change itself is the very basis of our continuity as persons. Only that which can change can continue: this is the principle by which infinite players live. |
| I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume - a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies. |