Dear Ludic Liberators,
This is an an experimental edition of The Lab Report called “Wild Card” — released because this month happens to have a 5th Monday. I’m playing with the genre of “advice column” (one of my faves ❤️️), answering YOUR existential questions by drawing on the wisdom of the puzzle video game Baba Is You (which requires you to change rules in order to win) and Byron Katie’s The Work (which challenges you to question your beliefs), and other favorite sources. Thank you to the two anonymous players who asked questions! If you have a dilemma that you want advice on for a possible future installment, please submit it to ludicliberation@gmail.com. xoxo - Natalia
Dear Baba,
There are so many problems in the world… aren’t I just bypassing all the deep work when I do something fun? ~ Concerned Player
Dear Concerned,
Yes, there are so many problems in the world. Climate catastrophe. War. Systemic Racism. Economic Inequality. Misinformation. Political Polarization. Domestic violence. Poverty. COVID!!!!!!! Bad people. Ocean plastic. Child abuse. THE POLICE. Indigenous erasure. Inflation. Water depletion. Obesity. Prison industrial complex. Cancer. We could go on and on.
How can we play a game or get a pedicure or go to a bar drinking or come to the ludic liberation lab when SO MANY PROBLEMS EXIST? Shouldn’t we be trying to FIX all the problems? Or at least. . . some of them?
When you play BABA IS YOU for a while, you learn that there are two kinds of rules that make up each level: ones that you can change by moving blocks around, and those that are impossible to change because they are tucked into the corners and edges of the level space. To be sure, they’re made of the same rule-block stuff, but your avatar just can’t get around them to push the pieces into new formations.
As a player, once you survey which rules are impossible to change, you accept it and play with the ones that are movable. It would be a waste to time to keep trying to change an unchangeable rule string, and unnecessarily self-limiting to treat a changeable rule as fixed.
In your question, I see several embedded rules that can be expressed using BABA IS YOU logic:
1) PROBLEM * IS * PROBLEM * AND * NOT * FUN
2) WORK * IS * NOT * FUN
3) PROBLEM * MAKE * WORK
4) FUN * IS * NOT * WIN
5) CONCERNED * IS * YOU (this one gives you an avatar you can play in the game)
Does that seem like an accurate description of the world we live in?
Now, let’s play BABA. Imagine each one of the words in the rule-sets above is something you can move around to make new rules strings. Let’s even say that in this level there are no unchangeable, inaccessible rules. Everything can be moved around! You can, for example, try removing all the NOTS into their own little NOT zone. Here’s what you get then:
PROBLEM IS PROBLEM AND FUN
WORK IS FUN
PROBLEM MAKE WORK
FUN IS WIN
CONCERNED IS YOU
NOT NOT NOT
In this version of the rules, everything is fun, including problems and work. No matter what we do, we have fun, and so we win! Seems great, except we do have this whole string of NOTs, and existentially, that does seem a bit knotty (pun always intended). It feels like we are maybe lying to ourselves and bypassing the trickiness of our task. Can we perhaps keep the nots but move them around to change the rules? LET’S TRY AGAIN:
1) PROBLEM * IS * NOT * PROBLEM
2) WORK * IS * NOT * FUN
3) NOT * PROBLEM * MAKE * WORK * AND * FUN
4) FUN * IS * WIN
5) CONCERNED * IS * YOU
This set of rules is a bit more paradoxical. What does that mean that “problem is not problem”?
One of my teachers, filmmaker and complexity theorist Nora Bateson says that “every problem can be traced back to a solution.” You can easily see how that’s true with the list of problems above. The problems of today’s climate crises came from yesterday’s solutions of industrialization. Misinformation the problem is in part the result of the solutions of algorithmic recommendation systems. We could go on and on!
The teaching reminds us that we should be careful about “fixing” things without considering the entangled interdependencies of the whole system. If we release the concept of PROBLEM as something fixed and fixable, we can instead focus on carefully revealing the actual underlying rule strings embedded in our existential situation. Rules like:
WATER IS LIFE
EARTH MAKE LIFE
CAPITALISM MAKE INEQUALITY AND NOVELTY
INEQUALITY MAKE WAR
WAR IS DEFEAT
PEACE IS WIN
LIFE IS YOU
I believe that when you do something you think is FUN, it’s because at some level you’re playing a game of moving little rule blocks around and changing some kind of existential condition, because rule-making and -breaking are inherently fun. NAIL IS GLITTER. HEAD IS BUBBLY. FRIEND IS HERE. YOU AND FRIEND MAKE MUSIC. With each tiny move, you’re actually practicing changing the world, one tiny rule string at a time. Not only does that build your skills as a player, but it can teach you to see how the big, seemingly unchangeable rules are made out of tiny little rules, rules that you can move and help others move, such as by posting cheat codes on existential game forums. After a while, you can potentially puzzle around enough to invent an unexpected SOLUTION to some big “PROBLEM”… which will only create a new problem… which will require a new solution… which will make a new problem… we could go on and on! :)
So, Concerned, as long as your fun is in service of revealing and remaking the rules, you are not bypassing anything. You are just passing through!
Why is it so hard to let things (and people) go? ~ Attached Played
Dear Attached,
When you play BABA IS YOU, some rules repeat so often across levels that you start seeing them as inevitable, natural, given. FLAG IS often WIN, while SKULL IS often DEFEAT. Usually, BABA IS YOU—meaning the avatar you start out with being able to embody is BABA. You become attached to these formations, including who you think “YOU” are.
But every time you reach a new level, the solution might require a completely new arrangement. In a new space, perhaps SKULL will be WIN, and FLAG won’t even be present. Perhaps YOU will have to be WALL or ICE for a while to get you to accomplish a certain task. The good thing about BABA IS YOU the video game is that after you complete each level you get a big change-a-roo. You enter a new two-dimensional space with a new title like RUINED ORCHARD or MUTUAL FEELINGS or MARITIME ADVENTURES. This transition and name change function as a reminder that you should be prepared to approach all rules afresh. You might even discover a whole new rule you’ve never encountered before!
In our non-BABA lives, we don’t often get such clear LEVEL CHANGE demarcations. Once in a while we do, as a result of a significant life change—when we move to a new place, change a professional role, or meet a person that shifts the course of our lives. But even when one thing changes, many other things in our lives may stay exactly the same – we may still have the same haircut, wear the same clothes, be called by the same name. So we may forget that we’re playing a new level and try to make things work with the old rules, even if they don’t quite fit the new situation.
Philosopher of play James P. Carse writes that there are two kinds of games: finite and infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.
Cosmically, we are infinite players choosing to play finite (existential) games, and to do so, we freely take on limitations of various finite roles. But Carse emphasizes that all the limitations of finite play are self-limitations — a voluntary act of “self-veling.” He gives the example of the self-veiling required to become a mother:
Only freely can one step into the role of mother. Persons who assume this role, however, must suspend their freedom with a proper seriousness in order to act as the role requires. A mother's words, actions, and feelings belong to the role and not to the person-although some persons may veil themselves so assiduously that they make their performance believable even to themselves, overlooking any distinction between a mother's feelings and their own.
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.
Perhaps it feels so hard to let things go, Attached, because you’ve been playing a finite game with so much oomph and for so long that you’re forgotten that you’re playing a role, and that you’ve agreed to these particular (but always modifiable) rules.
If that’s so, you can use the reminder of finite and infinite games and the level-change logic of BABA IS YOU to help you! Recognize that you’re now playing a NEW LEVEL – a new finite game. This level has some similar elements to a previous one, but everything can be rearranged. To help you remember, give this level a fun name. You can even use the level names of actual BABA IS YOU as inspiration. Is this level called SEEKING ACCEPTANCE? GHOST FRIEND? RENOVATING? CONCRETE GOALS? PLEASE HOLD MY KEY?
Ask yourself: what’s the puzzle and the adventure of this level? Does playing by your old rules and roles help you navigate this new level? If not, how might you shift things around to see a new way to move inside this space? What new elements might be available here to assist you?
When you surrender to and embrace change, you remember yourself as the infinite player. I’ll quote one final bit from Carse on this:
A finite player is trained not only to anticipate every future possibility, but to control the future, to prevent it from altering the past. This is the finite player in the mode of seriousness with its dread of unpredictable consequence.
Infinite players, on the other hand, continue their play in the expectation of being surprised. If surprise is no longer possible, all play ceases.
Thanks for letting me play the advice column game!
May the odds be ever in your favor!
Natalia
Game Maker/Destroyer
ATTN: CALLING ALL RECOVERING ARTISTS!
Ludic Liberation and the School of Faliure are starting a group called ARTISTS ANONYMOUS - a Failure Book Club based on The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. We’re going to meet for 13 Mondays, September 6 - November 29, 5pm-6pm EST and go through the process of the book together. Failure (to show up, do the work, complete the process) is expected and encouraged! Space is limited to 13 participants. Donations are welcome to help cover the cost of the hosting platforms for our sessions, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Fill out this form if you’re interested in participating by Saturday, September 4.
LAB REPORT IS FUN
LAB REPORT IS BRILLIANT
LAB REPORT IS WIN