When in doubt, argue with dead guys.
Fun fact: to test whether that item you found is a bone or a rock, touch it to your tongue. Bones are porous, so will stick slightly.
Other fun fact: Today Partner and I toured the Paris catacombs.
We did not touch any bones to our tongues.
I bought a suit today. I hate suits. They stifle my expression, and I wish we could all just be naked all the time. (With some clothing, for warmth.)
Then I found the suit. Right color, right size. My previous option was not black and not accurately sized; this one is definitely black and definitely accurately sized. It only took Partner and me two thrift stores. I haggled the owner down from 59 euros to 55. The shirt was another 15.
And the tie. The tie reminds me of how I first met the groom. (At the arts school tour, he asked, “What are you working on?” I said, “I wrote a cubist book.” This is a spiritually cubist tie.)
I hated 90% of the purchasing process. I’m happy with the result.
After the white shirt was 15€ instead of the 10 the sign proclaimed (trust me, Partner went back and checked, but the shopkeeper maintained that it was a 15€ shirt that was misplaced due to the presence of a security tag), I was done with the whole process but still needed a tie.
I grumbled through another shop. All of their ties were bad.
Partner changed the game.
She set a timer every time we walked into a store. We had ten minutes, max. Main goal: get a tie we like. Sub-goal: see how fast we can get in, find the ties, and get out.
First store: 1 minute 36 seconds. Second: 1 minute 24 seconds. Third: something like 6 minutes, but we got the tie.
Games make everything better.
Bernard Suits, another dead guy (and author of The Grasshopper, the canonical attempt to define “game”), says a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. So what was the obstacle?
The obvious answer is the timer. But that’s wrong. Ten minutes is not an obstacle. In any of these stores, you can see every single tie in under three minutes; add a minute to find them and a minute to leave, and the clock still never touches you.
The timer didn’t set a limit for us to strain against. It started a race. The real game was to get the tie and get out as fast as possible. This type of game is called a “speedrun”. The opposite of an unnecessary obstacle, a speedrun chases the goal by the most efficient path it can find. Suits (the Bernard one, not the one we purchased) says a game makes you take the long way. Our game did the opposite.
Given our circumstances (in the Les Halles district of Paris, need appropriate tie for upcoming wedding), sprinting through thrift shops is the most efficient way to achieve the goal. One could argue that various aspects of this macro activity are unnecessary (wearing a tie) or obstacles (the dress code), but taking those for granted, the manner in which Partner and I attempted this (do it as fast as possible) is certainly a game. And it’s a game without any new unnecessary obstacles.
The timer does not create unnecessary obstacles; it creates motivation. A ludus (“game-playing”) posture, if you will. The obstacles were already there: finding a tie, judging a tie, the distance to cross. The speed didn’t add a new one. It just made us want to win.
(Suits’ potential comeback: “Then it wasn’t a game, just an errand with a stopwatch.” My response: When we add a timer or a score or a counter or a badge, we call that “gamification”. What does “gamification” refer to if not “to make increasingly game-like”? Clearly there is something about the tracking that increases an activity’s game-ness, not only the obstacles.)
I spent the afternoon in the Paris catacombs. Now I argue with a dead guy. But at least I look dapper doing it.
Julian Wise 