Finite and Infinite Games

The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish.

Infinite players regard their wins and losses in whatever finite games they play as but moments in continuing play.

Infinite play resounds throughout with a kind of laughter. It is not a laughter at others who have come to an unexpected end, having thought they were going somewhere else. It is laughter with others with whom we have discovered that the end we thought we were coming to has unexpectedly opened. We laugh not at what has surprisingly come to be impos

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

The issue here is not whether self-veiling can be avoided, or even should be avoided. Indeed, no finite play is possible without it. The issue is whether we are ever willing to drop the veil and openly acknowledge, if only to ourselves, that we have freely chosen to face the world through a mask.

The rules of a finite game are the contractual terms by which the players can agree who has won.

The titled are powerful. Those around them are expected to yield, to withdraw their opposition, and to conform to their will—in the arena in which the title was won. The exercise of power always presupposes resistance.

The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish.

To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.