A relaunch.
I’m most alive when I’m playing games.
A few months ago, my sister asked me about an unspoken rule in her business culture – an implicit game. I told her about games where explicit acknowledgment of the rule breaks the rule, and pointing that out is also against the rule. She thanked me and said I should write about the philosophy of games.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since.
Near the end of my senior year of college, I ushered my father into a room above the library and drew three circles on a whiteboard: writing, philosophy, and befriending eccentric people. In the middle I wrote the question that would pick my profession: “in what areas am I in the top 5% of my classmates?”
The answer that fell out: befriend eccentric people, then write their philosophy.
Not wanting to be a starving writer, I asked one follow-up: who in that circle has money? Growing up in Silicon Valley, the answer was tech founders. I spent the next six years building that business and rose to the top of the technology ghostwriting industry. It was fun while I was growing. It’s not fun anymore. The game is too easy.
So today I ran the exercise again, with the ikigai framework:
- What do I love? Games. Learning new things. Befriending eccentric people.
- What am I paid for? Writing.
- What does the world need? Play. Whimsy. Fun.
- What am I good at? Making complex things clear.
The answer that fell out is games, which makes sense: games are a bounded, examinable instance of the thing the world needs more of. If the world needs more play, games are where play can be examined. I learned this at clown school: the first course isn’t about humor or fun or jokes; it’s about games.
The three pillars of this publication, going forward:
- Games.
- Eccentric people.
- Practical philosophy.
Writing is the medium. Speaking, eventually.
The new name is Wise to the Game. (My last name is Wise. It’s a pun. A double-pun? No: a triple-pun. Try to keep up.)
More tomorrow.
Julian Wise 