Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James Carse. 

2/5 rating. 149 pages.

Book #49 of 2023. Read December 3, 2023.

James talks about the two types of games in life.

I’ve heard mentions of this book and thought the premise of two types of “games”: those we try to win, and those we try to ensure don’t end seemed interesting. Even with that being the case, I can’t remember the last time I was so lost so many times while reading a book. James would go from a sentence that I thought was interesting and profound into something like this: “In thinking you cast thoughts beyond themselves, surrendering them to that which they cannot be.” I honestly don’t know if that is a genius statement that I just haven’t yet comprehended…or just word salad that doesn’t really have any actual meaning. Because of the conversations I’ve heard about insights taken away from this book, I’m inclined towards the former and this book just is over my head.

If that quote meant something to you, maybe you’ll read, understand, and enjoy this book immensely, otherwise you’re probably with me, and these quotes I did understand will suffice as a worthwhile alternative to reading this.

“When Sherman burned his way from Atlanta to the sea, he so ignored the sense of spatial limitation that for many persons the war was not legitimately won by the Union Army, and has in fact never been concluded.”

“Indeed, the only purpose of the game is to prevent it from coming to an end, to keep everyone in play.”

“The United States did not, for example, lose its war in Southeast Asia so much as lose its audience for a war. No doubt much of the disillusion and bitterness of its warriors comes from the missing final scene – the hero’s homecoming to parades or ceremonial burial – an anticipated scene that carries many into battle.”

“It is apparent to infinite players that wealth is not so much possessed as it is performed.”

“However, who wins empire, fortune, and fame but loses in love has lost in everything.”

“Indeed, it is not machinery we are buying at all, but what we can have by way of it: a means is rapidly carrying us from one location to another, an object of envy for others, protection from the weather.”

“A perfect radio will draw no attention to itself, will make it seem we are in the very presence of the source of its sound.”

Additional Quotes:

“As soon as it is concluded we are able to look backward and see how the sequence of moves, though made freely by the competitors, could have resulted in this outcome. We can see how every move fit into a sequence that made it inevitable that this player would win.”

“I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my play with them, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of play with them.”

“Since there can be no prizes without a society, no society without opponents, patriots must create enemies before we can require protection from them. Patriots can flourish only where boundaries are well-defined, hostile, and dangerous.”

“Waste is the antiproperty that becomes the possession of losers. It is the emblem of the untitled.”

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