Life’s a game.
And if life is like any other game, it must mean that there are some underlying mechanics to the game. A certain logic.
To figure out the game mechanics we can start by understanding what the game values the most. What is our ticket to victory in the game?
If we assume that our conclusion from Tricky games1 is correct, we know that winning at the game of life means getting to live life. And we know too, that we only get to start living life once we have choice.
But what about the thing you call life are you really getting to choose?
Most of us don’t get to have a say in one of life's biggest decisions — school. For a typical life which spans 75 years, those — commonly — mandated 18 school years equate to roughly ¼ of our entire lives.
And that’s no mistake, that’s the game passing its bill to our parents. They don’t have a choice, we have to go to school, otherwise they’d have to spend their time taking care of us and wouldn’t be able to work a job which gives them the money they need to support the family — I mean come on now, we’ve got to eat and shelter at least. Who’s going to pay for that?
Now, notice the thing which takes choice out of the equation. It’d be an economically irrational trade-off to take time to care for our kids instead of working a job.
Why? Because we get paid for our job, not for taking care of our kids…and we need to get paid, because we need to eat and shelter, and who’s going to pay for all that?
But, what is this all telling us about the game mechanics? Well, to simplify things, let us use the example above;
If choice is victory, and choice is hindered by the economically irrational trade-off we mentioned, then the thing underlying that economically irrational trade-off must be our variable to solve for in the game2 — it must underlie the mechanics of the game.
That underlying variable is money
It is an undeniable fact that money is one, if not the most important variable for the mechanics of the game.
Without it, choice becomes an impossibility. That’s how the game is designed, it’s incredibly clever — money is the thing that both takes away and gives us choice. Money is as much your ticket out of the game, as it is your ticket to stay — active — in it. It’s a trivial conclusion to arrive at to say that one must be an active — and eligible — player in the game to have a chance at winning.
It’s much less trivial to understand that your ticket out of the game is also the thing designed to keep you in it.3
Now you know.
(1) First essay in this series.
(2) We used the school example to get to our conclusion. But don’t be mistaken, I’d bet we could arrive at that conclusion from any starting point.
(3) Study the mechanics and incentives of the game deeply. How is it that if so many of us have access to the winning ticket, so few of us are out of the game? One part of the answer is quantity — but below that lives an entire world of many more variables at play.