Finding Peace Between Conquest and Capitulation ($)

Collaboration is the secret strategy to avoiding either conquest or capitulation.

“The Western day is indeed nearing when the inner science of self-control will be found as necessary as the outer conquest of nature.” — Paramahansa Yogananda, Hindu monk

Today, a Suswati Basu of How To Be Books, asked me why people like to play games. I told her it was because we’re wired to feel personally affirmed when we find solutions. If the game is too simple, we don’t take it personally enough. If it’s too hard, we take it too personally.

Our brains are wired to play games. Much of who we take ourselves to be is an avatar, a constructed presentation. This is why computer games are as popular with adults as they are with children. As we grow older, our personality becomes more self contained and less defined by our success in competition, but it’s still a construction.

Notice that most older people are not attracted to computer games, or any games that establish a winner. Those older people who are attracted to competitive games seem to have more childish personalities. What they are is less mature adults.

Being less mature is not the same as being childish, because children are creative, while immature adults are avoidant. We can all recognize our place on this spectrum. Regaining creativity should always be a goal.

Growing Out of Games

Simple games have simple winners and losers. Preteens play computer games in which the main object is to kill each other. The entertainment is in deception and advantage. Children are punished for deception and denied advantage while, at the same time, subject to constant deception and disadvantage. For those reasons, these games feel satisfying to children.

Teenagers play collaborative games. They’re still trying to kill the enemy, but now the enemy is abstract. The enemy represents some consensus that brings people together: good versus evil. As we grow older we become less secure, at least in Western culture. We become less creative, less confident, and more attached to security. We become less tolerant of losing.

The typical games that older people play are jigsaw, crossword, and sudoku puzzles. My father played solitaire. These are games that have no score and at which you cannot lose. The reward lies in finishing the game.

The Game of Life

Some people live competitive lives either because they are competitive people, or they live in a competitive environment. Competitive people are those who grew up being rewarded for winning. They have a competitive mindset either because they are athletes or hunters.

These people typically find themselves in a cage. Their inclinations are not tamed, they are directed or exploited. Like animals in a zoo, if these people are not continually rewarded, they become frustrated.

We call them “Alpha Males,” regardless of their genders. People think this description is borrowed from the animal kingdom where social species are purported to establish dominance hierarchies. This misunderstanding belies our social dysfunction.

Humans are the only species who have this kind of Alpha Male mentality. In more balanced social species—which is all animals except higher primates like us—the hierarchy is fluid. In these more balanced species the Alpha is a leadership position, not a personality type.

In societies of canines and cats, weaker leaders abdicate to stronger leaders, they don’t kill each other. Human Alpha’s kill each other, often by whatever means possible. Donald Trump seems like a lesser evolved primate because he is.

---

If you feel you’re not winning and you should be, then schedule a free consultation…