Upon reading James Carse’s lauded work Finite and Infinite Games, I realized I’d never felt similarly about any other book. I was riveted, moved, and completely annoyed. What a tremendous concept: that we ought to spend our lives in acts of mutual generation and play, extending to infinity, rather than playing short-term zero-sum games! Also, what an irritating style of writing!
With all due respect to the dear departed Carse, he seemed to want to imitate the vague style of ancient prophets, out of a desire to, I don’t know, seem mystical, maybe. It’s just weird to spend a whole book advocating for an infinite existence without furnishing a simple example of the material attributes of such a life. It’s also weird that a book about being playful doesn’t have a single joke in it. Maybe he's participating in an infinite game by getting other people to come up with practical implementations of his principles.
If so, here is my move.
"Host a party with people you know well and don’t, invite a shy person, make them comfortable."
As someone who only seems to get shyer as I get older, this seems both fantastic and terrifying. In other words, it's a great idea.