Objector: I respectfully disagree. If life is a zero sum game then there is no true creativity, no true novelty. No where to go nothing to do. Life is filled with infinite possibility and is a creative force. I get that you are pointing to the law of polarity, the equal opposites which compose experience, but that’s very different from life being a zero sum game.
In fact, the mentality that life and society is a zero sum game is the root of much evil in this world. People take from others rather than create for themselves. To gain power and freedom is to take power and freedom from others. This is a toxic mentality. There is boundless freedom available to all. You say a lot of good things in this post, but the zero sum game concept I cannot condone.
James: We obviously have different definitions of zero-sum. If you think your definition is correct and I think mine is correct, that’s zero-sum. It would have to be that way if there is limitless freedom, as you say, which I choose to exercise now. If there is “much evil” there is also much good. If there is creativity there is also predictability. Writers suffer writer’s block, for instance. That there is no where to go and nothing to do implies going and doing. For every where, there is a nowhere and for every non-doer, a doer. Zero-sum. for every possibility there is an impossibility. For everything that is opposite something else there two are things that are the same.
You are right, people don’t like the idea that experience is zero-sum because it is zero-sum. As you point out they want novelty and variety, spontaneity, excitement, etc. They need to do exciting things to counteract routine boredom. After a while exciting things become boring things and they start looking for activities that distract them from the zero sum nature of life. There are long-suffering people who are frustrated because life won’t give them death. Why? Because the dead don’t suffer zero-sum because they aren’t alive. My father, who was bored, for instance, used to wistfully say, “When will it ever end?” People want limitless freedom because they feel helpless. They want power because they feel weak and helpless. Zero sum. You don’t have conservatives without liberals. They are mutually dependent factors. OK, call them poles. If there are no men there are no women. The all male clubs are considered unfair because they don’t allow women. But there are no men in men’s clubs or women in women’s clubs…only human beings. Gender implies androgeny. Justice implies injustice. If my mentality is toxic, your mentality is healthy and your ideas nutritious. You can’t condone me because I am wrong.
Yes, there is boundless freedom for all. Totally agree. But it is not to be found in the world of zero-sum world of experience. It is to be found in always available NO-SUM existence itself shining as unborn whole and complete consciousness/awareness, the non-dual Self. Non dual, which is really NO DUAL, means the opposite of polar. But darnitt!, yes negates no.
You and I agree on two things. (1) the world of experience is zero-sum and (2) no-sum freedom. Same page there. But I can’t condone, however, the idea of freedom as limitless creativity because if there is limitless freedom there is limitless routine. Limitless implies limited, that pesky zero-sum fact again! The always-available no-dual “I”, as sages say, is the only knower of freedom and bondage 🙂
You are free of duality as the non-dual I and I am free of duality as the non-dual I, so when you don’t condone me, you don’t condone you. Not good. But not bad either. So I guess I respectfully disagree. That makes us both right. Or wrong as the case may be. Just saying. But if I’m saying something I’m not silent. Dad gummit! The sages say that the one who says doesn’t know and the one who knows doesn’t say. That makes me ignorant. But If I know I’m ignorant, which you don’t condone, am I ignorant? Perhaps I’m a sage. Do you condone that? Nice chatting with you.
