Harrison,
Ok, I'll take your word from previous posts that I won't be in trouble
if I risk going up against you again - or maybe it's just a hope that
this thread won't be shut down due to misunderstandings.
The statement "OST is a game" actually doesn't work for me so much
because it uncomfortably reduces all the ideas and philosophy (and
practice) of OST into a word that unfortunately has for many negative
connotations. But perhaps I'll invite thinking about OST *as* a game
instead. Perhaps that can help prevent cognitive dissonance and allow
for this conversation to continue.
My understanding of the word game as used by Daniel Mezick and others
comes from game theory - and could open up many benefits.
The briefest way I think to hope to keep this particular door open for
those in this community who might find the word game unpleasant would be
to suggest the book "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play
and Possibility" by James P. Carse. Mr. Carse actually is a professor of
history and literature of religion - and his thinking in that book is
very poetic and beautiful. And it reminds me much of Open Space thinking
- and I won't even attempt to dive into his thesis any more than to look
at what I think sums up the thinking being the final sentence in the
book. "There is only one infinite game."
The bigger game of Open Space is the game of life - the unending story -
the "one infinite game". And an OST meeting or conference is a finite
game which seems to open up an experience of the infinite game in a
beautiful way. And yet, there's still value in seeing the finite game
aspects of OST in that context.
Alas, perhaps this attempt will be futile. But I hold out hope that
others won't be discouraged from this perspective on OST as a game and
it's benefits.
Harold
On 10/7/13 1:25 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:
Dan -- Using the word, "game" as you do, I guess it sort of works with
OS, but I do confess a certain feeling of cognitive dissonance, which
I suspect may be shared by some of my colleagues. In any event, it
certainly would not be a word I would use. But that doesn't mean a
great deal. However, when you say, "Leaders choose to play OST. Or
not," I do feel called upon to say something like... Oh Yes?
Some people refer to the "Game of Life," but it is scarcely a game you
choose to play (or not). Not playing is called suicide, I think, and
while some people do make that choice it is not a choice that most
folks would considered good, useful, or positive. It is more like
canceling all choices. Out of the Game, so to speak.
I feel rather the same way about OS, and for all the same reasons. OS
for me is not a process we choose to do or not do -- quite simply it
is what we are -- Self organizing, and OS is only an invitation to be
ourselves fully and purposefully. We can chose to be ourselves with
distinction, despair, or something in between -- but so long as we
remain on the planet in some viable form, we got no choice. We are
what we are, what we are. Put a little differently, OS is not
something new and different, it is just a small name change for what
has been around for quite a while: life. I guess you can call it a
game, but somehow that seems to miss some of the nuances.
Harrison
--
Harold Shinsato
har...@shinsato.com <mailto:har...@shinsato.com>
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
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