February 8th, 2009 Have We Been Played?
Have you ever been in a social situation where you have felt yourself on the outside? And when you looked at who was on the inside, it simply made no sense. They weren’t any smarter than you, better looking than you, or superior to you in any discernible way – yet they were on the inside, and you were on the outside, looking in.
Or have you ever noticed how we you can work your tail off and have very little to show for it while others seem to glide through life effortlessly, without a care in the world? Even when they do stumble –get caught breaking rules, get fired, or even screw up completely, they always seem to land on their feet. How is that?
Did you ever feel that there is a game and you are on the outside of it? As if there were a secret that they share – some unspoken, invisible code that only they understood.
Well you were right! Over the course of my life I have encountered the same thing over and over. I’ve run companies in Eastern Europe, owned a construction and development company here in Canada. I’ve worked in small business, big business and government on both sides of the Atlantic. No matter the environment – at the club, on the job, even at home in with our own family, I began to see the same pattern playing out over and over.
Bit by bit I figured it out – the hidden dance, the other secret, the one no one talks about. In my mind this is the real secret! I invested over 30 years of thought into this problem and I believe I have cracked the code.
Now this is all very well and good but how does it help us in our lives in the here and now?
Well, it helps us to know the score and not be blindsided by what life throws at us.
It helps us to be proactive – perceive and react to situations before they arise- so we can get nip them in the bud or take evasive action to sidestep the problem altogether.
It can help us to engineer the outcome that we want in our lives.
It provides us with security so that we protect ourselves and our loved ones, not just today, but in the future as well.
Sometimes life just happens and we find ourselves in a tight spot with our backs to the wall. Knowing this game, the players, and how this Game is played can be invaluable in helping us to extricate ourselves from these tight spots.
And perhaps more important than all the above, understanding the Game and coming to know the Players; helps us to live our lives as we wish; instead of the way in which others wish us to, we feel we have to, or still worst, the way we’ve been forced to.
February 18th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
you sound like the kind of tragic romantic hero I have been seeking all my life.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
i wrote my response in the wrong spot and i apologize for that. I spoke about the fact that the only ones that can deal effectively with the game and not become soul-less or become someone they are not is to be an empty vessel that walks the earth and is able to play without being affected.
frankly, the idea of playing the players and not the game in order to preserve oneself is a strange concept to me. I do not see the difference. I wish I could transcribe my original thoughts…
February 19th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
love the blog!
February 27th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Yes, I agree, the life is a game and not everybody enjoys playing
Hope you didn’t expose all the secrets!
March 11th, 2009 at 12:45 am
the basic idea”hidden game” is very intersting because it opens the door to: specific languages? secrets? magic power?initiation and so on.
more, to develop and argue you have different tracks:
what about their specific behaviour? what about the rules? the game? Is it a win win? Do they accept ” a foreigner” in their specific world?how much should I pay and what about my ROI?
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I’m not sure how this plays out in the west, but in India (where I’m from) the reasons are not difficult to fathom and my analysis applies statistically for a population of 1.1+ billion:
We have a 3000+ year old culture that believes– and this is at the core of the most sacred religious texts– that ‘what you should’ achieve in life is a function of where you are born, codified thru’ a near-linear skin-color coding, with fairer skin as a conscious and subconscious substitute measure of merit.
According to the beliefs of this system, you are born into a ‘good’ family (read this as upper caste family) or in a family of lower merit (the lower castes) depending on your Karma (the net of your virtues and vices in your previous birth)– basically, this allowed the traditional elite, the upper castes to control the vast hordes by keeping a hold over functions involving learning and thinking as well as finance thru’ the centuries.
I’m guessing that the traditional elite in the west may have ‘cliques’ and the like, with similar but less overt and less severe exclusion of others– most certainly, you wont find religious sanction for such a scheme in the west, with its tradition of liberal thought!
August 28th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
You present your point brilliantly! In the West it is not as obvious, but it is no less true. If you contact me at jshardy@rogers.com I would be happy to present you with a complementary copy of my first ebook: The Game and the Players.
All the best,
John
August 28th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Thank you for your comment. The Hidden Game I am referring to is a kind of sub-text which is present in almost all social interactions. I would be happy to present you with a complementary copy of my first ebook: The Game and the Players. Fill in the contact form and I will email you a copy.
All the best
August 28th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Thanks for your reply. I encourage you to visit my web site at http://www.playingtheplayers.com, I think you may find it intriguing.