Play Games (Part I)
Friendly Advice: Steer Clear of Casinos
U.S. casinos won $66,000,000,000 last year. That means a bunch of folks lost $66,000,000,000 last year. Arithmetic. A game worth knowing how to play, especially for counting change in Bodegas. I’m from the Bronx, remember?
Flashing back to the sections of my life where I was identified as Professor of Television and Film: SEE “Casino.” Pesci and Rickles and De Niro. Scorsese at the helm: ACTION!
’Nuf said? No? Well, three of the four named above are still alive. 3/4! Fractions! Higher mathematics for me.
While we’re flashing - A BONUS! What some people really want to do in life, above all else, is play/sing jazz. There’s an excellent reason for that. Jazz and life share a main ingredient, joyful surprise. Meet Joey Doggs. He’s very close to Joe Pesci.
When last we met, the name game figured prominently in our exploration of imagination, play, and beliefs.
REDUX: “We buy into the name game with enthusiasm, it becomes one of the multiplayer games we play. Play is the way we learn. We learn to be somebody. Being erupts into believing.”
Pretty soon we believe wholeheartedly in the games we play. They become inextricably entwined with our identities. Eventually, we accumulate paperwork as proof.
We hold licenses (drivers, bar, medical), passports, and the ever popular lines of credit, paperwork represented as plasticwork called credit cards. All tied to our names.
I carry all of the above with the exception of bar and medical licenses, although, in the interest of full disclosure, I have played lawyers and doctors on television, long ago in the Wristwatch Age.
All of the identities we assume relate to one or another of the many games we play. When ranked and consolidated, these identities become OUR IDENTITY.
The games we play are not always obvious, unless and until we learn to recognize them. That takes practice.
When we OWN ‘Boardwalk’ in a fierce and rapacious contest to drive dear friends and beloved relatives into bankruptcy, there is little doubt we’re playing a game called Monopoly.
Monopoly comes packaged neatly, and clearly labeled as a game created by Milton Bradley (1836 -1911), an actual person.
Milton established his eponymous company in 1860, the pride of Springfield, Massachusetts. Monopoly was not the only game he created and sold. He also marketed, among many others, a board game entitled, The Checkered Game of Life.
The Milton Bradley Company celebrated their centennial in 1960 with the re-release of The Checkered Game of Life, which was modernized. It was now simply called The Game of Life, and, as a sign of the times the goal was no longer to reach a Happy Old Age, it morphed into become a millionaire. Modern Times.
A must-see Chaplin film.
We all play all the time just as we all act all the time. Most often we don’t see the ubiquitous games in our lives.
The word game has come to refer colloquially to frivolous activities, manipulative misbehaviors or relatively unimportant diversions.
Unless, of course, we identify with a particular team or athlete and we have money or pride riding on a win. Possibly we’re invested in our own play (think poker or golf) with something at stake, like a firstborn child.
We don’t realize it’s all a game. Games and stories are practically identical. A game is a kind of story, and a story is a kind of game.
ALL OF LIFE CONSISTS OF GAMES; WE LIVE AS AND IN STORY
At the core of ACTING HUMAN practice is an integrated understanding of this truth. When we learn to play wisely, with awareness and skill, we learn to live life alive.
We live as actors. We, while relaxed and playful, actively co-create our lives as we live them. When we engage fully in life as intentional players we naturally cohere with universal creativity.
I can see how one might latch onto the idea that ACTING HUMAN is impractical and delusional woo-woo.
So not so.
Hang in there, as we engage in learning practical ways to live our lives alive in an unpredictable and mysterious universe, naturally at play. It most likely seems counterintuitive that to play naturally requires practice. We’ve got much to unlearn that clogs the way to ‘natural.’ Unlearning is one of the most challenging aspects of learning craft. Craft holds the key to skillful means.
A vision will emerge. We’ll see that the division between practical and impractical is a false and harmful dichotomy. A mental model that keeps us imprisoned in a world of this or that, rather than free in a world that readily sees this and that.
We practice to remind ourselves of what we already know. It is our nature to play and learn. We grow up and, as implored, we come down to Earth, where we find ourselves poorer upon landing.
We naturally learn to live enlivened lives together, in dynamic relationship with each other, unseparated from the WHOLE.
When we ACT HUMAN we learn to live life alive. We act and play naturally for the sake of sanity and humanity.
Meet James P. Carse (1932 - 2020)
He’s here to help. As Stella Adler implored us to employ generosity as a core value, so we shall. To help one another constitutes a tenet of ACTING HUMAN.
Carse was a longtime professor of history and literature of religion at New York University. His interests meet at the intersection of spiritual traditions and their overlaps with virtually all other academic arenas. His reach was without limit.
His best known book, Finite and Infinite Games, has been vastly influential.
I have read it repeatedly over many years. It never fails to fortify my curiosity and elicit fresh insights.
I heartily commend it to your attention. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. Invaluable.
We will share two (maybe three) additional dispatches inspired by Carse’s teachings.
Finite and Infinite Games sheds sweeping light on ACTING HUMAN.
I will take an imitative approach in sharing Carse with you. He writes short ‘chapters.’ 101 of them in 177 pages. Bursts of wisdom for us to absorb slowly, and contemplate repeatedly.
NOTE: As we discuss creative practice, craft per se, imitation will come into focus as an indispensable strategy. Originality is often touted in the context of creativity and imitation is eschewed, leaving many eager aspirants mislead in a rush to artistry.
“Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.” ~Paddy Chayefsky
I’m with Paddy. (BTW: He had early influence in my life. By way of my father. My father delivered milk, Paddy drank milk. More later.)
I’ve had the privilege of working with and sharing social company with many of the most accomplished musicians, actors, writers, and directors in the world. Never have I heard even one of them use the term ‘artist’ in self reference.
Louis Armstrong, politely cut short an interview prior to a Command Performance for the KIng and Queen of Denmark with “I gotta get to the job.”
The only time I use ‘artist’ as my ‘identity’ is when signing contracts. The signature line on professional agreements typically appears over the term ‘artist.’ Calhoun says sign, I sign.
Back to Carse
The entire first chapter of Finite And Infinite Games reads:
“There are at least two kinds 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.”
Chapter 7 in its entirety.
“Finite games can be played within an infinite game, but an infinite game cannot be played within a finite game.
Infinite players regard wins and loses in whatever finite games they play as but moments in continuing play.”
All of Chapter 101 reads:
“THERE IS BUT ONE INFINITE GAME.”
Please start with the above chapters.
Let them rain down on you. Softly. There’s nothing to figure out. There are no expected answers. Let them move you. What questions do they raise?
Notice how you feel.
I urge you to share responses in the comment section, which is open to all.
Kindly invite new readers.
A sampling of what we’ll talk about in the next several dispatches:
Satisfying Work
Uncertainty
Conformity
Politics and War
Relationships
Expectations
Authenticity
Perspective
Listening
Love
Sexuality
Death and Dying
Adaptability
Legacy
Mental Health
Media
Whale Porn
Until next we meet,
Lights Up!
LOVE this post. Love Emily McDowell's words, especially "Your true self is right there....". YES!
Over the years, Dubin has recommended many books to me. At the top of the list, Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity." If there's such a thing as must-read, that's it. Others in the canon: "Money and the Meaning of Life," by Jacob Needleman; "Be Here Now," by Ram Dass; and "Wholeness and the Implicate Order," by David Bohm, to name but a few, and all essential. But if "The Wisdom of Insecurity" is #1 for me, #2 is "Finite and Infinite Games," by James Carse. It is indeed the gift that keeps on giving. Thoughtful, inspiring, encouraging. Thank you for sharing some of it in this post, Dubin, and for all the words you're sharing in Acting Human that remind us that there is a path to dissipating cultural conditioning and re-learning who we are.
Whale porn?