Is it OK to change the rules in the middle of the game?
That’s the question I’ve been asking myself over the last five days as I’ve been on this writing journey. After the first day, I realized that I didn’t want to write at 9pm because after dinner, I just wanted to chill—so I changed the evening writing time to 5pm. After a few days, I realized that I wanted to create the name of the piece before I do the audio recording so that I could read the name before going on with the text. And now today, I had the thought that while I could invite people to watch me live journal, I could also invite them to live journal themselves. I started thinking in so many directions—people could publish them as well, maybe I could built a site to help people publish, maybe this could be an app, ooooo, I could also include some of my audio reflection questions to start the show, etc.—and I quickly felt overwhelmed.
I don’t know what’s the answer about changing the rules in the middle. I don’t think there is AN answer. I read a book about finite and infinite games, and in it, the author states that in finite games, one cannot change the rules in the middle because the goal is to have a clear winner; in infinite games, one may change the rules in the middle because the goal is to keep the game going. I loved how he framed that and I guess sometimes I feel frustrated that I believe the world wants me to play finite games but that I love infinite games.
So which is this? This writing experiment, this “I will write for 35 consecutive days and do X, Y, and Z?” Maybe it’s about keeping some of the rules the same and tweaking some of the less important ones. The 35 days will stay the same, the 3 times per day, the writing live, the no editing, etc. But perhaps I can allow myself some flexibility to either change the rules or know that I may break them and forgive myself so that I can come back to following them.
I think I often worry to commit to very strictly defined games because in the past, I have been overly strict with myself into following the rules even if I didn’t want to. I can get into mindsets where I say, “No, I won’t do that because I said I would do X.” And no matter what situations would arise, I would commit to that, and it often led to much heartache in myself and in others.
What’s the answer? I don’t know. Maybe having a little more compassion for myself to let things flow, but also having more trust in the rules that I set up. I seem to fall into either the very strict camp or the very loose camp, and I’m trying to sometimes hang out in the middle.
That all being said, I’ve made a lot of typos in these writings, mostly noticing them when I have to read the piece outloud, sometimes cringing at my glaring errors. But that’s OK. Perhaps it’s about being OK with the errors in content but also in process.
Carry on.
