Wild Minds Weekly: Which game do you want to play?

Hello friends,

We've all been playing a game that we didn't choose to start.

A competitive win-lose game - for one to win, another must lose.

A game of misaligned incentives, where a forest is worth more as dead lumber than living organ of the world, where a field is worth more as a solar farm than a pasture. This is the game we all play. This is the rat race, and it ends in self destruction. This is "Game A".

If you want freedom from the exhaustion of constant competition, work that feeds rather than drains you, and authentic relationships instead of "networking", then it's time to play a different game.

Game A is a finite game, where the purpose is to win. (We've explored this in more detail in a previous newsletter which you can read here: The System Isn't Broken)

Game A has created:

• A for-profit military-industrial complex as one of the largest blocks of the global economy. Peace would mean bankruptcy. Ongoing war and threat of war to continually manage is optimal. War for any cause is profitable. Military contractors have massive lobbying resources and major shareholders in decision making positions of military and government.
• A for-profit health care system that makes no money on healthy people, makes a little on permanent cures and makes the most on long term symptom management
  
  

But what's the alternative, how do we build a better world? One our kids would be lucky to live in, where we have economic security through interdependence, and innovation without destruction.

I'm talking about a game with win-win dynamics, where in order for one person or group to do well, the collective has to do well. The goal is not relentless forward progress, it's about maintenance of a harmonious system. The game that Nature plays. I'm talking about "Game B".

This is what the team on One Tree Farm is striving towards, it's what I've been striving towards, and I imagine it's what you want as well, even if you only had a vague idea like I had.

So what is Game B?

Game B is an environment that maximises collaboration, collective intelligence, and you and your family's long-term well-being. How?

By integrating with the complex systems we're a part of, rather than exploiting them.

At its core, Game B is a game of coherence - which is when the parts of something fit together in a natural way.

Your body is the perfect analogy. 

Your liver, kidneys, heart all operate in balance, only growing as many new cells as were needed to replace the ones that die. There isn't this need for continuous advancement of each organ, the goal is the continuous development of you, the greater organism. 

A cancer cell behaves differently. A cancer cell says "f*ck the body, grow at all costs", and we know what happens then. Resource consumption, aggressive growth, spread, and then finally when the body can no longer sustain its growth, death. The cancer cell won in the short-term, but in the end, the body loses. This is the end result of Game A.

The purpose of Game B, on the other hand, is to keep playing the game. 

So, how do we get there?

There are 3 things that need to happen, ideally at the same time, and fast.

Damage control - Minimising the harm that comes from Game A as it winds down. Think of this as handling the surface level problem like taking medications for a serious illness, or cleaning the plastic off beaches and out of the oceans.  It's necessary, but it's not enough by itself.

Transition - Building new prototypes of systems and solutions, taking larger and larger swings to solve chunks of the problems from Game A.

The goal is to set things up for Game B, which means ideally:

Moving resources from Game A to Game B

Being resilient to attack from the current economic, law, or military systems.

But we're not just talking about it, this is exactly what we, and many other projects around the world, are doing - building decentralised food and education models.

But none of those matter without the most important change:

Establishing Game B - Consciously cultivating and scaling this new system. 

This looks like:

- Local food webs replacing global supply chains - not just an occasional visit to the farmers market as a weekend activity but getting ALL of your food from the local farmer.

- Interdependence - When Sarah's chickens provide eggs for Tom's family, and Tom's expertise keeps Sarah's solar panels running, they both have skin in each other's success

- Parallel economic systems - Local currencies (like tokens) that keep wealth circulating in communities or mutual aid networks that make insurance companies irrelevant (you don't need an insurance company if your network agrees to help you if something goes wrong).

Where Game A is about prescription, strategy, and isolation, Game B is about complexity and embracing uncertainty.

There is no clear path, no obvious strategy. We must collectively make our way forward, feeling the bumps and rocks in the ground, listening as intently as we can, to figure out what we should do next. It's an approach of humility and curiosity.

And it's happening now, us and many others are building a new system. The question is whether you'll help build it or wait for others to invite you in.

Here's one thing you can do to move yourself in that direction:

One of the key ideas in Game B is to use your full self to figure the next best move and move in that direction. What does that mean?

That means listening, both to what life is asking of you, and what your body is telling you. It means using more than just your mind, but your body as well. Your mind and body are not separate, and modern society treats them as they are. The mind listens to the body, and the body listens to the mind. Tune the instrument that is yourself and you'll develop that connection and intuition. That could be with meditation, fasting, or even intense physical challenge. 

But it's not easy. I had to drown out A LOT of noise before I could figure out what the next best move for me was (spoiler: it's what I'm doing right now).

So the question I leave you with today is this:

"What is your full self telling you to do next?"

This may have been a question you've already asked yourself, which may be what brought you here.

But this is a question we must constantly ask ourselves as we strive to play the infinite game of life and work towards a healthier, more collaborative society.

It starts with you.

To your freedom and interdependence,

Rob (find me on X)

Wild Minds Community.

PS.
The way out of Game A is already open. We're not waiting for permission. We're building the future now in Wild Minds Network.

👉Click here to join 1230+ others, find your people, and take your first step out.