When we come across our friends on social media and get fascinated by their lives and by what they are doing, the fleeting happiness we had with our lives disappears and suddenly we feel frustrated and sometimes depressed. Moreover, we let our surrounding guide our immediate goals and get temporary happiness on achieving those. We live from event to event with our eyes on very narrow timelines. The wide range of uncertainty and factors makes it pretty evident that at the end of the day life is an infinite game. This is primarily because of the fact that the parameters life is gauged upon are intangible and feel based and may differ based on values and beliefs of an individual. There are 6 billion people in this world and hence 6 billion different ways of living lives and yet none can say confidently that there is a particular correct way of living life. We all have our own set of values and beliefs and we lead our lives based on our terms.
This simple thought depicts how every single person in this world has been living life differently compared to any other individual. Finite vs infinite players is an unstable configuration since one of them is playing to win and other is playing to outlast the otherĪ simple guesstimate can show that on an average we come across almost 0.1 million people every year and yet we never meet someone who is exactly like us.
Infinite vs Infinite players is a stable configuration since both are playing to outlast and frustrate the opponent.
Finite vs Finite players is a stable configuration since both are playing to win. Cold war is an example of infinite game, nobody knows which side is going to win however, players try to outlast the opponent and if any of the player gets frustrated, he withdraws from the game. Players create their own set of rules and the idea is to frustrate the opponent and outlast him rather than winning. Infinite Games are the ones with finite or infinite number of players. The rules are well defined and agreed upon. Say for example, in an ODI Cricket match each side gets 50 overs and the team with more score wins the match. All sports are finite games, the rules are already set and everyone knows when a side will win and nobody argues about the credibility of the result at the end of the game. In finite games, players come together to win. Finite Games are the ones with finite number of players who come together and play on a mutually agreed upon set of rules. The new perspective has helped me come out of existential crises and filled the voids in personal fulfilment and satisfaction. While leading our directionless lives, eventually we feel lonely and instead of solving root cause of the problem, we either indulge ourselves in instant gratification techniques or deny existence of the problem. The rat race to earn more money, earn more respect, earn more stature than our peers propels us towards our destinations with no focus on the journeys we are creating. We set our goals influenced by societal norms or looking at what others have achieved instead of individual journey inspired goals. The world is moving at a rapid pace and there is no time for retrospection. The topic might sound a little technical/mathematical but if we understand the basic and the founding pillars of it, everything can just be put into pieces which can then easily be placed into right places and suddenly it feels like we have solved the jigsaw puzzle of satisfaction and fulfilment in life. It has helped me change my perspective of how I look at life. While diving deeper into the theory I understood the parallels which can be drawn between the theory and our lives. Recently, I came across Game Theory, an old mathematical theory which finds wide applications in economics, biology, political science etc.
0 kommentar(er)
