[OSList] The OST Game

[Michael Herman]

Not sure you actually accomlished "Against," Harold.  I think I just read
OST is life, a finite slice of Life.

And if the conversation happens in a room full of people who think and talk
about games, that's great to say OST is a game cuz everyone in that room or
community knows what that means. Probably doesn't work as well on CNN or at
an ODN mtg.

I guess it still a bit confusing to me if this conversation is about how to
talk OST in agile community or how to talk OST in other/larger communities.
Translation is always possible, but the game lingo doesn't seem native to
the folks I'm usually talking with. Actually, finding some native
understanding of (and native language for) OS seems like half the game in
many instances.

m



On Wednesday, October 9, 2013, Harold Shinsato wrote:

>  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 <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'harold at shinsato.com');>
> http://shinsato.com
> twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
>


-- 
Michael Herman
MichaelHerman.com
(312) 280-7838

Sent from my iPhone
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