Finite and Infinite Games, and Your Health

colinchamp December 2, 2019 6 Comments

In 1986, James Curse published a masterpiece. His book, Finite and Infinite Games, proclaimed that:

“There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”

With the first time I read it, Carse’s book quickly became one of my favorites and was at the top of my recommended list. I lent it out frequently, and this is likely why the book if spewing at the seams, the cover is worn, and the pages are stained. Finite and Infinite Games does an incredible job at simplifying the major components of life into two black and white categories. Life, as Carse symbolically reminds us, cannot easily be separated into two, and the goal is rather to avoid the finite, bounded games and instead focus on the infinite ones. Flying in the face of what we are consistently told by society and the media, the goal is to engage in the long-term games where there are no victors. Forget the winners and losers, the goal is to simply be a player in the infinite game, which provides the ultimate goal in life – simply being part of it.

There are no stickers in this game, no likes from someone we have not seen in 20 years, yet follows us on social media, and no comments from the guy we never liked in high school but are somehow now “friends” with on Twitter, rekindling a friendship that was never there to begin with. The infinite games could care less about these useless metrics.

Health: The Infinite Game

During my initial read and every time I return to Carse’s masterpiece, the analogies and parallels to a healthy lifestyle never fail to stand out. While most of the nutrition and health world – at least in the spotlight of the media – seems to fight over fad diets, calories, carbohydrates, and eating or avoiding meat, consumerism continues to consume its victims, conveniencism leaves us striving for the easiest and quickest, and the many facets of modern life actively promote a lifestyle composed of an infinite amount of finite games that destroy our mental and physical health before our very own eyes.

I mean actively, as in everywhere – right in front of our faces on billboards, ads, commercials, in our hospitals,¹ and even our schools. These activities do nothing to benefit our lives, yet we continually push for more and more. We sit here fighting about what is the optimal diet while a majority of the population does not even consume real food. Did that 30-Day Detox sell 30,000 copies? Congratulations, it won the finite game. But did it actually leave people healthier and striving for more? Congrats as they have entered the infinite game with your help.

While the finite games seem rather easy to define, the infinite game, like the path to health, is a bit more mysterious. In Carse’s words:

“Infinite games are more mysterious – and ultimately more rewarding. They are unscripted and unpredictable; they are the source of true freedom.”

Talking heads may fight about the optimal path to health on social media, and achieving – or rather maintaining – health may be unglamorous, but the goal is truly our ultimate infinite game.

Going Infinite for Your Health

We are all consumed by a series of finite games, and when it comes to our health, this is a recipe for disaster. Advising people to exercise more and count calories while inundating them with an unstoppable barrage of shoves that pushes them ever closer to falling over that edge is a finite game that most of us will lose.

Yet Carse, in his non health or diet fad book, may be providing us an antidote, an approach you will not see in many health books. While fad diet books continue to pop up left and right (finite games), and while products and “hacks” are produced at an alarming rate and promoted to magically turn around our health (more finite games), the vast majority of us will never achieve optimal health until we turn a blind eye to these finite games, and instead, focus on merely continuing to play the infinite game.

While, “a finite player seeks power,” an “infinite one displays self-sufficient strength.” Furthermore, while “finite games are theatrical, necessitating an audience,” “infinite ones are dramatic, involving participants.” What greater self-sufficient strength than our health. Our health requires no audience, just participants; at the end of the day it is just us facing ourselves.

Yet, the allure of finite games constantly surrounds us, threatening our infinite game of health. For instance, in modern day America, we are surrounded with constant temptations that are finite games at their worst:

1. Winning by obtaining the cheapest products available (a time sink that promotes focusing on quality over quantity, a disaster when it comes to food)
2. Winning by demonizing other sides after grouping the entire world into two finite political classes, demonizing one or the other, and watching news shows, programmed to make us angry and, much like processed foods, addicted
3. Attempting to win at finite dietary strategies and gimmicky exercise routines instead of focusing on a general healthy and proactive lifestyle that respects oneself and others
4. Attempting to win the ultimate finite game, social media, by pining for addictive “likes” and acknowledgement from meaningless people whom you never even met, leading you to post toxic comments and denigrating pictures of yourself that you would have never imagined even a few years ago. (There are no winners in this finite game, only losers.)

You can ignore these finite games and instead turn towards the infinite games:

1. A trip to the gym is a finite game; a mixed and varied exercise regimen incorporated within your lifestyle is the ultimate infinite game. For those involved, there are no infinite winners and losers, only those who keep playing. For those who quit, their health loses and they lose.
2. A healthy home: There are no medals, thumbs up, or likes for cleaning your house, doing the dishes, or helping your spouse cook meals. Yet, these activities will promote a healthy and happy marriage and leave you continuing to play that infinite game.
3. Hunting and gathering high quality food, cooking with family and friends, and then gathering around the dinner table to chew the fat and enjoy the nutritious food is an ultimate infinite game. There are no prizes and short-term goals, no medals, and no fodder for egos. This infinite game provides long-term health, better relationships with friends and families, and an appreciation for life that may take decades to realize. There are no short-term winners and losers in this game.
4. Living your life to the fullest, working hard, living an intentional lifestyle, optimizing arete, and always fare bella figura rarely provide short-term victories, but in the infinite game of life, you will always come out on top.

Don’t have enough time to do this? How much time do you spend watching television and browsing social media outlets? Remove these and ask yourself if you still do not have enough time? Carse has an answer to this as well:

“The infinite player in us does not consume time but generates it. Because infinite play is dramatic and has no scripted conclusion, its time is time lived and not time viewed.”

Finite games are played to win. Infinite games are played to keep on playing. The former is the epitome of short-term reward. In the game of health and life, we are required to keep on playing. A physically and mentally healthy lifestyle is the ultimate infinite game. Are you playing it?

Infinite Game References:

Champ CE, Iarrobino NA, Haskins CP. Hospitals Lead by Poor Example: An Assessment of Snacks, Soda, and Junk Food Availability in Veterans Affairs Hospitals. Nutrition. 2018;0(0). doi:10.1016/j.nut.2018.09.028

Main photo credit to Randy Fath

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