The deadliest game

Life is the game that must be played. ~Edwin Arlington Robinson

What is a game? By definition the qualifications of game are fairly broad. A game could really be any "physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other" or, even broader, "a procedure or strategy for gaining an end."

By deduction a game is not everything that isn't a game. These are simple enough statement, but then what isn't a game?

Our modern lives are dominated by games. Not the "fun and games" style of game, but the "procedure for gaining an end" type. The methods of daily survival of the average American are as far from surviving in nature as the modern meaning of "game" from its original meaning based in hunting. So, what isn't a game in our lives?

Eating: not a game

Table manners: a game (Rules, metrics for success, rewards and consequences)

Relationships: not a game

Romance and dating: a game

Credit cards: Have scores, rules, upkeep, and metrics for success. Did I budget well enough? Can I pay off my card this month? The house always wins, of course.

Stocks: Absolutely a game...which can ruin your life. See below.

Taxes: Paying taxes is not a game. However, evading taxes is a very dangerous, and potentially very profitable game.

Laws: Exist on the belief that they exist. Everyone, daily, bends the law. I, for one, know that I can drive more than fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit in certain areas of Pittsburgh and no-one will care. In Austin there are a couple places that it is understood that public nudity is acceptable. People cross state lines to shop because taxes are different on the other side. The legal system is, really, a game of seeing how much you can get away with without pissing too many people off.

Even being stuck in traffic is a game. The metrics for success are based on how many people you pass, how many people pass you, and the amount of time you spend not stopped. I doubt "Let's get stuck in traffic" will be the next AAA title, but there it is.

Money:

Let's take a look at money. It is worth more than the paper it's written on, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone willing to spend twenty dollars on a rectangle of paper unless it was a fifty-dollar bill, then people would look at me like I was crazy.

So, what is money worth? It's not a deposit slip for a measured amount of any resource, like it once was. Money is worth what we --the collective we, the world population-- think it's worth. At first that's a terrifying idea, but within a few hours you get hungry or have to pay your phone bill and it doesn't matter as much.

Money's value internationally is determined by, essentially, public opinion. "The dollar fell against the euro today" obviously has no literal meaning and although the phrase itself is devoid of a human element, the real meaning goes somewhere along these lines: People think the European economy will continue doing better than the American economy tomorrow, so they put their money into Euros.

The stock market, like the money market, is dependent on people betting that they'll make a dollar tomorrow if they put one somewhere today. The world economy has better odds than vegas, but the same general principle. There are rules: no insider trading, no collaborating to destabilize economies, no printing your own money. Still, people make their living betting that they know what is going to happen with the value of a company better than other people.

Your company, if it is traded openly, is owned by gamblers.

Your job is part of that game.

Your money is part of that game.

There's nothing you can do about it.

Maybe everything in life isn't a game, but everything with a most favorable outcome has metrics for success. Everything that has meaningful choice has strategy. Everything that takes time, the one thing you can never get back, has a risk and reward.