[OSList] The OST Game

Harold Shinsato harold at shinsato.com
Wed Oct 9 06:29:26 PDT 2013


Harrison,

Ok, I'll take your word from previous posts that I won't be in trouble 
if I risk going up against you again - or maybe it's just a hope that 
this thread won't be shut down due to misunderstandings.

The statement "OST is a game" actually doesn't work for me so much 
because it uncomfortably reduces all the ideas and philosophy (and 
practice) of OST into a word that unfortunately has for many negative 
connotations. But perhaps I'll invite thinking about OST *as* a game 
instead. Perhaps that can help prevent cognitive dissonance and allow 
for this conversation to continue.

My understanding of the word game as used by Daniel Mezick and others 
comes from game theory - and could open up many benefits.

The briefest way I think to hope to keep this particular door open for 
those in this community who might find the word game unpleasant would be 
to suggest the book "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play 
and Possibility" by James P. Carse. Mr. Carse actually is a professor of 
history and literature of religion - and his thinking in that book is 
very poetic and beautiful. And it reminds me much of Open Space thinking 
- and I won't even attempt to dive into his thesis any more than to look 
at what I think sums up the thinking being the final sentence in the 
book. "There is only one infinite game."

The bigger game of Open Space is the game of life - the unending story - 
the "one infinite game". And an OST meeting or conference is a finite 
game which seems to open up an experience of the infinite game in a 
beautiful way. And yet, there's still value in seeing the finite game 
aspects of OST in that context.

Alas, perhaps this attempt will be futile. But I hold out hope that 
others won't be discouraged from this perspective on OST as a game and 
it's benefits.

     Harold

On 10/7/13 1:25 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:
>
> Dan -- Using the word, "game" as you do, I guess it sort of works with 
> OS, but I do confess a certain feeling of cognitive dissonance, which 
> I suspect may be shared by some of my colleagues. In any event, it 
> certainly would not be a word I would use. But that doesn't mean a 
> great deal. However, when you say, "Leaders choose to play OST. Or 
> not," I do feel called upon to say something like... Oh Yes?
>
> Some people refer to the "Game of Life," but it is scarcely a game you 
> choose to play (or not). Not playing is called suicide, I think, and 
> while some people do make that choice it is not a choice that most 
> folks would considered good, useful, or positive. It is more like 
> canceling all choices. Out of the Game, so to speak.
>
> I feel rather the same way about OS, and for all the same reasons. OS 
> for me is not a process we choose to do or not do -- quite simply it 
> is what we are --  Self organizing, and OS is only an invitation to be 
> ourselves fully and purposefully. We can chose to be ourselves with 
> distinction, despair, or something in between --  but so long as we 
> remain on the planet in some viable form, we got no choice. We are 
> what we are, what we are. Put a little differently, OS is not 
> something new and different, it is just a small name change for what 
> has been around for quite a while: life.  I guess you can call it a 
> game, but somehow that seems to miss some of the nuances.
>
> Harrison
>
>


-- 
Harold Shinsato
harold at shinsato.com <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
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