The Foot is Not a Game

Writing these notes is the closest I come to game playing these days. I don't do hockey, baseball, football, soccer, golf, boxing. I'm not a player and not a spectator. 

But this blog is a game of sorts. You are reading this, so I feel like I have scored. Only about half of the people who get notices of these notes actually read them. It would be nice to improve my score. That's why I put a few minutes into finding a catchy title.

So today's catchy title is an allusion to Sherlock's familiar announcement of adventure, "the game is afoot". It seems to be worth your attention, because here you are reading.

Now that I have your attention, here is the plan. I'm going to start with a narrative drawn from personal experience and segue into observations about larger issues that concern everyone. All in 500 words or less.

First the foot. I trimmed my toenails again this week. I don't have to do that often because they don't grow very fast. Imagine if I didn't trim them at all. Just ask Google about "long toenails" to see what I mean. At some point, you have to trim them or give up using feet as feet. Well-maintained feet are useful for getting from the couch to the refrigerator until they become a problem in need of clippers. I could go on about how hard it is clipping toenails when you can't see so well and your back is sore and stiff. But I won't. I've made my point: the foot is not a game. Do what it takes to make it useful as a foot.

Segue into politics. Democracy is not a game. It is a system for regulating people so they can coexist for mutual benefit, get along internationally, and make wise use of the resources that the biosphere provides. Failure to do the job could mean poverty for many and obscene wealth for a few, war within and between nations, and collapse of the biosphere. Democracy is not a game. But politics...? It would be nice if politicians were interested in working together to find the best solutions to urgent problems. That would not be gaming. 

But politics, as practiced here, is a game. For the most part, politicians are players determined to win while pushing the rules as far as they can without penalties. We spectators watch on our screens, cheering for our team and yelling insults at the opponents. And then we vote for our guys because the other team is a bunch of idiots and crooks. Mutual benefit, peace, the collapse of the biosphere, truth, respect, restraint, none of that matters as long as our team wins. Enough of games. Could we get back to the issues and try actual democracy for a change?

Now, I hear that windows are not a game. If you don't keep them clean, you can't see what's going on and the neighbours will think you're a slob. Where's my squeegee? Oh no. It's raining. I win.

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The point of the last paragraph, if you missed it, is that even when we know something is not a game, we are seduced by our ambitions, appetites, aversions, laziness, etc. into treating it like a game. So, if we want to get something useful done, we have to be aware of our innate gaming instinct, suppress the primal urge to win, and do the work. 

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Self-control in politics is a boring virtue, and an absolutely necessary one. Aaron Wherry reports on a speech to the Canadian senate by Ian Shugart, CBC News, June 23, 2023.