Supra/super-natural causes aside, what confounds us is the time-scale and pace involved. I don't know how much of a background you have with games or game-theory, I have some modicum of an understanding of it:
The term "open-ended" in some games means that as long as you get a specific result, you get to keep rolling the die again and aga…
Supra/super-natural causes aside, what confounds us is the time-scale and pace involved. I don't know how much of a background you have with games or game-theory, I have some modicum of an understanding of it:
The term "open-ended" in some games means that as long as you get a specific result, you get to keep rolling the die again and again. In Rolemaster, open-ended results were basically the game mechanic making stuff like David slaying Goliath possible: a couple of 98-00 on the D100, and then rolling a 66C crit - instakill.
I mention this because that's one end of the scale or spectrum of time-perception (and projected perception of time too): immediate, no prep, no real plan needed - just a Sinkadus (Swedish spelling of 5+2 in French, when playing Craps).
The other end of the spectrum-scale is open-ended in the other sense: the game never ends. P&P RPGs used to be played that way - a GM, his mates and a never-ending story, kept up until it reached a natural pause or the players wanted to try something else, or the GM wanted to play instead of GMing. Instead of set and fixed hard goals, keeping the story going and having fun crafting it together was "winning the game".
Now transpose the above to perspectives of open-ended onto the initial question and my somewhat purple response:
If you are centered, if you [are] - then you can do both and switch back and forth as wanted and needed.
But if you grow up and live in time where only the first version is paramount (or presented as the only option), you will only think in immediates or short-term events. A mayfly's perception of reality. Easily brushed aside.
And if you grow up in a time and place where only the second perspective is allowed, you will not /be yourself the individual/ at all, but will exist as part and continuation of a collective whole.
Arabic culture is the first: short, nasty, brutish and "Me always, you never" in attitude. Or as a Palestinian students said it: "Me against my brother; him and me against the cousins; us all against another family; our people against everyone". There's no building anything lasting out of that, nor any point in planning ahead for generations.
Chinese culture is the second: you are the caretaker of the efforts and products of your ancestors. There's no innovation in that, only repetition. And while repetition may and will often lead to perfection, it also leads to perfecting things that could have been improved, but instead the flaws too were made perfect.
Only among the Europeans, and their offspring nations, was there ever in post-Roman times a good blend of both, up until after WW2 concluded.
Now, we are like mayflies before an early Autumn frost in being shortsighted and fixated on immediate gratification of [Rights], and at the same time we are blindly trying to stare beyond the horizon of Climate Doom, while not seeing what is happening right here, right now, nor with any ability to see why the Now is the way it is, nor where this Now will lead if the whys that made it possible are allowed to continue affect it.
Progress - in the meaningful rather than pejorative sense - is naturally impossible in either of the two extremes. One degenerates into chaos, the other crystallizes into inflexible order. A balance is needed.
You can see that crystallisation happening right now:
Inflexible Order imposed by the force driving globalism, via all its acronym-laden tentacles.
Anarchy and chaos being allowed to fester and flourish at the base of society, as long as it never rises to challenge the Order.
At the top of society, reigns Inflexible Order. Corrupt, venal, blind, groping about to gorge itself on anything it can befoul and devour.
At the bottom the rule of the ruthless holds court, making life short nasty and brutish for anyone not being a predator or an agent of Order.
Balance achieved, the way a pole may indeed stand on its own end. It may even stand fast, lodged in the ground. Eventually, that end rots away and the pole falls, the rest of it also going to rot and ruin.
The better balance being, the pole suspended on a fulcrum. But from what to make such a fucrum, where to forge it, how to move the pole back and forth to maintain balance, and how to not overload the ends so that the fuclrum a wedge does not become, snapping the pole in bits - I'm at a loss.
Supra/super-natural causes aside, what confounds us is the time-scale and pace involved. I don't know how much of a background you have with games or game-theory, I have some modicum of an understanding of it:
The term "open-ended" in some games means that as long as you get a specific result, you get to keep rolling the die again and again. In Rolemaster, open-ended results were basically the game mechanic making stuff like David slaying Goliath possible: a couple of 98-00 on the D100, and then rolling a 66C crit - instakill.
I mention this because that's one end of the scale or spectrum of time-perception (and projected perception of time too): immediate, no prep, no real plan needed - just a Sinkadus (Swedish spelling of 5+2 in French, when playing Craps).
The other end of the spectrum-scale is open-ended in the other sense: the game never ends. P&P RPGs used to be played that way - a GM, his mates and a never-ending story, kept up until it reached a natural pause or the players wanted to try something else, or the GM wanted to play instead of GMing. Instead of set and fixed hard goals, keeping the story going and having fun crafting it together was "winning the game".
Now transpose the above to perspectives of open-ended onto the initial question and my somewhat purple response:
If you are centered, if you [are] - then you can do both and switch back and forth as wanted and needed.
But if you grow up and live in time where only the first version is paramount (or presented as the only option), you will only think in immediates or short-term events. A mayfly's perception of reality. Easily brushed aside.
And if you grow up in a time and place where only the second perspective is allowed, you will not /be yourself the individual/ at all, but will exist as part and continuation of a collective whole.
Arabic culture is the first: short, nasty, brutish and "Me always, you never" in attitude. Or as a Palestinian students said it: "Me against my brother; him and me against the cousins; us all against another family; our people against everyone". There's no building anything lasting out of that, nor any point in planning ahead for generations.
Chinese culture is the second: you are the caretaker of the efforts and products of your ancestors. There's no innovation in that, only repetition. And while repetition may and will often lead to perfection, it also leads to perfecting things that could have been improved, but instead the flaws too were made perfect.
Only among the Europeans, and their offspring nations, was there ever in post-Roman times a good blend of both, up until after WW2 concluded.
Now, we are like mayflies before an early Autumn frost in being shortsighted and fixated on immediate gratification of [Rights], and at the same time we are blindly trying to stare beyond the horizon of Climate Doom, while not seeing what is happening right here, right now, nor with any ability to see why the Now is the way it is, nor where this Now will lead if the whys that made it possible are allowed to continue affect it.
Interesting way of exploring these issues.
Progress - in the meaningful rather than pejorative sense - is naturally impossible in either of the two extremes. One degenerates into chaos, the other crystallizes into inflexible order. A balance is needed.
Sorry for late reply:
You can see that crystallisation happening right now:
Inflexible Order imposed by the force driving globalism, via all its acronym-laden tentacles.
Anarchy and chaos being allowed to fester and flourish at the base of society, as long as it never rises to challenge the Order.
At the top of society, reigns Inflexible Order. Corrupt, venal, blind, groping about to gorge itself on anything it can befoul and devour.
At the bottom the rule of the ruthless holds court, making life short nasty and brutish for anyone not being a predator or an agent of Order.
Balance achieved, the way a pole may indeed stand on its own end. It may even stand fast, lodged in the ground. Eventually, that end rots away and the pole falls, the rest of it also going to rot and ruin.
The better balance being, the pole suspended on a fulcrum. But from what to make such a fucrum, where to forge it, how to move the pole back and forth to maintain balance, and how to not overload the ends so that the fuclrum a wedge does not become, snapping the pole in bits - I'm at a loss.