Latest / Art of the Question / Finite and Infinite Games - Prof. Niki Harré - #17

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Finite and Infinite Games - Prof. Niki Harré - #17 · Art of the Question

• Julius Moorman: You wrote about finite versus infinite games. ⁓ was just curious what inspired you to write it? So I've been in environmental and social justice spaces for a long time and really aware that there's a lot of teachings between them. And it seemed to me that they lack some kind of even fine symbol as we'll probably get onto. I'm pretty interested in God as a symbol as well. I came across the fellow German philosopher, James Kass on a podcast. It was a CBC podcast. And he referred to the infinite game and the purpose of the infinite game as to keep the game in play. And as soon as I heard that, thought, wow, that is the symbol I'm looking for as a Empire of Metaist. That's all I'm trying to do actually is keep the game in play. So I really, of course I've immediately read his book called Finite and Infinite Games and then developed Mediqlo further myself and ran lots of workshops and did interviews and other types of data collection to explore it. So my current version of this, ⁓ to give James Kass complete credit for starting this out, it was him that suggested that there are two kinds of games. the infinite game and which your purpose is to keep the game in play and finite games in which the purpose is to win. So my expansion that is that the infinite game is about keeping the things we value most deeply in play and inviting others into the game and finite games are the roles, rules, bureaucracy, structures and competitions that we use to organize ourselves. So the infinite game is always in flight. It's something that we're exchanging. It's almost like the air we breathe, the water we swim in. But we can be more or less connected to that. And finite games are necessary, but they'll just spin on their own axis and distract us from those really poor baddie. So an example of a good finite game is I'm glad there's a driver license game here in New Zealand, as there is in the... You can't just jump into a car and start to drive, but you have to learn the rules of the game and pass the test and be qualified on your own. Similarly, medical doctors have to be trained and so on. they're important. But you know, an environmental circle stands like the oil game. Have we taken that too far? Is it something that we've structured the society around but is now no longer the best way in which to get our energies is and to be reliant on and so on. So it's always a matter of tweaking and tweaking our finite games and always keep the intimate and play. Yeah. And is one of the problems of finite games also that we humans tend to move goalposts as we come closer to our goals. So for example, I often set goals for myself and then I didn't even pass this goal yet, but I'm very close to getting towards my goal. know it will take probably one week, maybe two weeks. A good example is when I go to the gym, for example, and I'm trying to reach a certain weight and then I am almost at that weight and I think, okay, but maybe if I keep, I can probably add some weight to it. So maybe after that, I should probably do 110 or 120 and then when I reach my initial goal, I'm not even happy with reaching that goal anymore because I've already moved the goalpost before succeeding. Yeah, that's a great example, isn't it, of how these games sort of keep us hooked in. Another one is around money because people can't imagine why anyone who's got millions of dollars would bother getting more money. But what they haven't realized is that that person is in a game structure in which exactly what you describe at the gym, which is a benign example, probably quite good, but your calls going from look, wait, ⁓ becomes, becomes quite problematic at that bigger scale that you're caught in a structure and which for example, money is the goal and you lose sight of the fact that actually tracing that money in that way. partly means that you're not doing other things, but it also means that other people don't get that money because finite games are often competitive. Again, the example you gave is actually not directly competitive or it's only competitive with yourself. But of course, a lot of sports are win-lose, your win or somebody else's loss. So if you're focused on the win, you're actually also leaving these losers in your wake. People we don't see or celebrate, they're slightly invisible because of the sort of shame is a big word, but quite often the perpetual loss creates a sense of shame in others. There's lots of reasons why those finite games can be psychologically unhealthy for you and those around you. Yeah. So are finite games often zero sum games then? They can be, I think. Competition is one of the key on finite games. I've often asked people, I've done research at Aspiegel about these infinite baddies, you the sense they bad you host deeply, which helped to keep the game in play. And their answers are always this beautiful collection of words and ideas, love, family and creativity, imagination, the natural world, spirituality, transcendence. And then I asked them about finite gains and finite values in which the object is to win, in which they are contingent in the sense that this group of people values them, but another group might not. ⁓ And to think about the games that they're embedded in a contemporary Western society and what the values of that game are. So the biggest thing that people contribute when I ask this by saw is money, monies all over. the infinite, the finite games that we play. ⁓ And there's money, there's competition, there's war, there's greed, but there's also things like jobs, qualifications and so on. So to bring this back to your question, is it a zero because I'm blame? I mean, I'm in a university and I'm sure the universities in New Zealand are saying where theoretically, you know, everybody can pass. So everybody can theoretically get the high grades. But in practice, it's quite normal. you're not going to get all the students an A+. So it's exactly zero sum, but it's definitely comparative if you like. But things like the job market, we just advertised for a teaching position at the university and we got 180 applicants. So there are two decisions. There will be two winners and 178 losers. That is the zero one game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's interesting. some may argue that that money or achieving ⁓ wealth, so to say, chasing wealth is in a sense an infinite game because there is almost an infinite amount of money you can you can get infinitely rich. Why doesn't that fit your definition of finite and infinite games? Well, there's two reasons it doesn't fit. One is that that's not actually possible because although to say money is infinite, and I get this quite often, so I'm used to answering that question. ⁓ To say money is infinite is to really play on the fact that money isn't a material object that exists. But it's not for all intents and purposes for most people on the ground. is actually, it operates in fine art ways. Again, I work at the university, I'm head of school, we have a budget. And so if somebody gets this money, somebody else doesn't get it. Now you can bring more money into the system, that's possible, but for all intents and purposes, it's, if you might get competition in terms of where we're going to spend the money. And I'm sure everybody listening to this that, you know, that's in the household or has that sense of making those choices. So that's one reason. why I think it's not intimate in a sense that I'm in. But the other thing is, imagine the infinite game as play-by-the-things that are considered sacred, precious, special, their own, are bandied to their own state, the things that make the world truly allied, and things that are not contingent on place or time or particular human goods. And then you get your love, mountains, trees, And of course, different languages can't be thought slightly differently, but it's in the human soul or condition or experience to recognize those things. Where money is a construction that we kind of invented in different parts of the world of time. And it's, it's of secondary value. It's of value in a way to enable others. And so. I think that's two good reasons why it's not. I agree. And ⁓ do you think that ⁓ finite games can be useful in order to play your infinite game? And what I mean by this is the following. I'll give you an example. I currently have a goal of one day reaching a thousand episodes on this show, on this podcast. Well, I've only just started. I'm about 17, 18 episodes in at this stage. So there's a long game ahead of me, a long road ahead of me. And I don't think that once I achieve that magical number of a thousand, that my life will be fundamentally different because of that number, right? However, It is a very tangible goal that allows me and pushes me to talk to more people, to do more research, which eventually aligns with my infinite game that I'm playing, which is to become a better, smarter, more eloquent person that cares about not only gaining knowledge, but spreading knowledge and providing entertainment. So in that sense, I'd argue the finite game that I'm playing is beneficial to the infinite game I'm playing at the same time. Do you think that makes sense at all? That finite games can be useful when you make them part of a bigger infinite game? I think that makes complete sense. And yes, absolutely. And it also touches on Another deep human need, which is for structure, ⁓ recognition in the best sense. don't mean in a kind of, know, status place for blight recognition. Contribution, because what you're doing is contributing to, you know, conversations. So, people listen to this podcast and getting something off it, while you will be becoming, you know, more skilled and thoughtful in the ways that you outline. We must have phone up games. We, we cannot simply sit in a pool of love family trees in the ocean. know, that's not what life means. And, I'm a very big believer in structure. ⁓ I lead quite a disciplined life myself in terms of things, and so on. And I find that when I have more routines and more. self-discipline, if you like, exercise too, various things like that. Something in me is facilitated and I become more spacious, more generous and all of those kind of things. But I also know, as I'm sure you know as well, that there is times when you need to back off. that remembering, I mean, food, I know we're too distracted into that, but I have this thing that sometimes when I feel like I need to said more consciously about what I'm eating, I will say to my fellow, okay, I'm doing conscious eating now. But one of my roles is that if there's a birthday party and somebody offers me cake, I will always help them because it is much more important to me to be in relationship than to stick to something like a diet ⁓ and I love cake. So I would eat it with great joy and pleasure. ⁓ so I, I've developed that specifically to allow both the, that discipline structure, but also the flexibility to, to be in the situation fully, which in some cases means eating cake. Yeah, right. And, and one of the, ⁓ I really liked that. And I'm one of the, ⁓ my favorite. infinite games that I play is to stay healthy, right? So I value eating clean, eating healthy a lot. I value going to the gym a lot. But what I often see with people that are trying to get into fitness, for example, is that they're treating it as a finite game. So they'll just like, okay, I'm going to work out for 12 months and then I lose 10 kilograms. I was like, okay, and what then? Like that's not how it works, right? You, you go to the gym every single week, multiple times a week in order to stay healthy. It's not like if you go to the gym a hundred times this week, that means that you don't have to go for the rest of the year. That's not how it works. You can't really front load it, if you will. ⁓ are there, are there any examples of, ⁓ yeah, people that are mistakenly trying to play finite games where they should be playing an infinite game. It's a good question. I'm sure there are lots and lots. I'm trying to think of from my own practice and when I slip into that, that department for obsession. I mean, another thing perhaps in my own life that could be an example of sometimes going key bar ⁓ is I'm a tride person. I had to, of course, quickly check that the thing behind me was moderately tidy. In case I was, and my cardiness is at my own judgment, if you like. ⁓ But sometimes I feel like I focus too much on the need for my sephin to be tidy than on the people that I work with. And I might get annoyed with, you know, crumbs being left somewhere or whatever it is that, that that I'd be that. So it's not quite the same kind of example you were talking about because I absolutely recognize that tidiness is a continuous process. And a little bit of that as an age thing for me, I maybe I've transitioned into an age group where you finally get it. But ⁓ yeah, but slight fun. It's a continuous, well, slow joy, whatever. And It never stops. mean, sometimes the most boring act in the world is cleaning your teeth, but everyone has to do it if you want to keep your teeth elbowed. And there's just no getting around it. It doesn't matter how rich you are, you cannot not do it. And life actually follows quite a few things like that. so we. Yeah, perhaps the mistake is the thinking that this finite gain, whatever it is, will cure some problem I have once in four. ⁓ Very occasionally that's cream. get a complication and then the job be gone, but most do this. No, and I think it might be, I help, I think it might, if we start to frame things in as finite or infinite games, it may help with, at least for me, it helps with, with mental health as well, because if you, think what I often have is that ⁓ it's this arrival fallacy, right? As soon as I reach goal X, then I will be happy. ⁓ currently I have stress because I have to finish this work assignment and then I have this busy weekend while I'd rather be. But as soon as that's behind me, then I'll be relaxed and then I'll be able to live my life the way I want to. But that's not how life works. Life always throws curveballs and you always have to deal with things that aren't going your way. And sometimes you'll have a period where things are going really, really well, but sometimes you'll have a rough patch. But generally there are no real perfect days. Generally there's always something that you have to take care of, that you have to do. I think at least again, for me, seeing, recognizing that some things are recurring and are infinite, that framing really helps me to come to terms with how stressful life can sometimes be. Yeah, it's an interesting thing because I do think there are moments... Another concept that I've been interested in and done work on is identity projects. And identity projects, just to be brief. is the idea that we are moving through like, I'm actively taking on tasks and an identity associated with them. And it's partly different to ascribed identities. So people might say, you know, I'm a New Zealander, I'm a woman, those kinds of identities. And it's, I am those things, but I don't walk my life so consciously along those mines, but I am a Baba and I'm now a grandmother and there are elements in which I subconsciously lived though, which you know, I chained to my children, my grandchildren and so on. So ⁓ one of the things that I think can, there can be genuine transitions when you drop or take on new identity projects. And the example I gave earlier about tidying in my own life. It might sound trivial, although anyone listening to this who feels that they're really struggling with that is actually not trivial. ⁓ but had, can have quite a big impact on your life. I transitioned from an untidy person to a tidy person overnight. And the transition was a mental one rather than physical one, because it didn't mean that my home was instantly tidy. It's taken me, you know, that that happened. about 30 years ago and even now I'm still working on that. It's a very enjoyable identity project. So sometimes we do take that leap. So when you talk about life continuing to move in that kind of way and teach with the tree fall or chaotic or something, sometimes we just say enough, I'm leaving this job. I'm being in this relationship and blah blah blah blah blah and that really does make a difference. So I do want to allow that. But the bigger point that it's attitudinal I think is an important one. Have you watched Stranger Things? Stranger Things? Yeah. I believe I've seen the first two seasons. I haven't seen the more recent ones and it was... Quite a long time ago, so please don't quiz me on it, but I do know what you're talking about. Yeah. So Stranger Things, I mean, the first season of By Far the Best, but, ⁓ it, ⁓ a in the town of Hawkins in the U S and there's an upside down. There's the upside down. I'm sure you remember that. And the upside down is basically still Hawkins, but it's now covered in weeds and it's all scary and dangerous and got monsters. And I've. I often use that metaphor in my kitchen and in other places because I think life can be like that. And for me, I find that there are times when I feel happy and control and then suddenly the world's nauseating and unpleasant and dangerous. And yet the external conditions are identical in my life. but somehow I've lost sight of what orienting factor that makes me realize that This is a beautiful climate we're trying to hone with other people. So that clipping between states can be partly the identity projects for a merchant, things that are going on. And it can be partly just something that seems to plop, which to me is still got a mystery to it, or is among grace when you're in a good state. Yeah. And do you think that as a society that we prefer finite games because they're sexier in a way. Like it's easier to say like I make $10,000 a month and I scored two goals at the football match the other day and we won because of my goals and like all these things are very easy to process and very easy to brag about and very easy to communicate. It's harder to say like Hey, I'm doing really well at ⁓ being a family man or something like that. ⁓ Honestly, like we value, hope many people value family, but it's less tangible. It's less sexy. It's difficult to put a number on basically. Yeah. And I think both those things are true. I think if you actually... I haven't done this, but if you documented human compensation, you'd find that probably a lot of the time people are in that infinite space. They're talking about relationships or being kind to each other, talking about the past bits and parts that they've got to get done, which is maybe a finite gain, but not a negative finite gain. I pick up on a lot of what you say when And James Kass's original book, Finite and Infinite Games, is one of the things he talks about is the way that society meets winners ⁓ because of, it comes back to the simple factor I was talking about before, that we need to structure ourselves around these games. So one of the things we do is we draw a huge amount of attention to women's. And your example of a, say a football game is a really good example of that because I have to admit I don't watch much. football. And what I thought for me about the game is that the margin between the winner and the loser can be so narrow because it's so few goals. know, it's it's like a complete freak that some team haven't to get the goal and wins one nil or whatever. ⁓ But I'm not an expert on game. I'm sure that's not really the case. The point is James Kass's point there is that Winning and losing is absolute. if you take ⁓ something like a football series in which you are progressively being knocked off and either going up or not, wins or losses, mean the stores as well, but eventually they're absolute even if the difference between the two parties is tiny. So I think you're right that ⁓ that it gives us something to talk about, to orient ourselves around. It's exciting. What will be the outcome of this? There's lots and lots of ways in which it almost makes us more alert. Like I can say family, love, and it's like, oh, but if I were to, you know, next week's game is like, whoa, now I'm kind of in bite. So yeah, it's all a matter of balance, but I do think you're right about the the talkability of these things. And one of the things during cast talks about is, society creates winners who are celebrated in some way, put on podiums, and the cleaners, the losers, are expected to basically just vanish into the darkness. They don't get to speak, they don't get to stand on a podium. And in both of our societies, we teach our children to lose graciously. you know, that's part of the good sportsman, the mutually and nice characteristics. One of the things that's a little bit tragic about this focus on winning and the absolute distinction is that, you know, who suffers the most very often from a finite gain, which is zero sum, is a person who merely won because that person is in this tragic situation of having lost but nearly having got there. If you just know that you're not going to win, then it's almost not really a competition because you're like, okay, I'll do this. It's fine. But if my wife didn't, my bruises. The silver medal syndrome on the Olympics. mean, I've heard that people who win a bronze medal are often happier than the person that came in second because bronze is like, Hey, I mean, I made it to the podium. That's, that's a win. But the silver medalist is like, lost the gold medal. Yeah. Yeah. And of course it's all relative too, because there are some people for whom a silver is just unbelievably fantastic and others for them. So everything's also relative about where your provision was up. But do you think there's an ⁓ evolutionary benefit to that we were evolutionary designs to value these finite games to the detriment of how much peace and inner strength playing the infinite games can do? And I'll give an example of maybe back in the day, ⁓ you either came home with the kale, with the hunting, with the animals that provided food for the entire village, or you didn't and you lost and then you starve, right? So are we wired in that sense to really value these binary outcomes? It's awful you go this fascinating to me because I think it's a bit gendered. I don't want to push that too strongly, but you have an example of what men traditionally have done. women are even more involved in the food gathering with child wearing, but those kinds of activities than the hunting. I've thought a lot about the arenas in which competition is essential. And the issue that I can think of will absolutely be essential for mating and gaying. in the sense that you couldn't have arranged marriages, so not all societies have seen that that must be capeto. But in my view, it's the one way in which you just have to hit those and leave them because I cannot see any other way of working and being good for human flourishing unless it's essentially competitive. And of course, that is also just enormously heartbreaking for lots of people, both sort of short term when, how to let the girl or the guy or whatever it is. ⁓ but also long-term, you know, people who, who went into non-relationship, relationships broke up. So I don't see any way of making that one not competitive. And, ⁓ yeah, but, but again, I, when I say that the science had made that sort of not competitive by arranged narrative. ⁓ goodness knows what goes on behind the scenes in those bad settings anyway. But I assume, I think, what the example of getting or not getting the beast, when does that one end? So maybe today you didn't, but then tomorrow you try again, or maybe you didn't kill the the wilderman, but you found some fish. So It's a kind of definitional thing, isn't it, as to where you draw the boundaries. I don't think we're inherently competitive all the time as a species. Not really. There's books on cooperation and evolution that say, I find this profound, and it's actually quite simple, that most creatures are essentially just doing their own thing. So the byproduct of doing your own thing can be intruscted, but from a psychological point of view, it's not competitive. So I bet when you go out, well, you'd probably just buy your carrots from the supermarket. Let's just imagine you learn how to hold a carrot from your garden. You just killed that carrot, but you're not thinking I'm competing with this carrot in some way. You're just doing that. I think. Most of the time people are just doing what they need to in terms of other species, to the Vietbilt Helen and the Rotorua Tui, and other human beings. And one thing I do think our contemporary global life puts more emphasis on competition. And some of that is due to good things, if you like. Our focus on human rights ⁓ that the individual can express themselves and sort of inherent in all of that becomes this So you've got to compete to win. Yeah. And if someone is listening to this and they recognize maybe in themselves, hey, ⁓ I think that I might be playing ⁓ that I might be a little too obsessed with playing all these finite games. I want to focus more on the infinite games. How can people recognize that in themselves and How can they perhaps make that transition into trying to play more infinite games, if you will? Yeah, something you said earlier, I think, was a really good point. The beginning point of that was recognizing it. Recognizing, hang on, I'm playing a finite game here. I'm either attempting to win or attempting to get a goal that is not going to mean any joy. By doing this game, I am excluding other people. I'm preventing them from being able to play by dominating the game in the way that I am. So there's that, with that reflective piece. And then I think there are certain practices that allow you to move into a finite internet space more. One that I'm particularly interested in, but with my interest in religion. even I feel was humility and I'll think humility. want to talk about humility if we are able to segue into that a little bit, because I think it's a really unfashionable way of being in the world and contemporary global societies. And I sent it's so important for recognizing that you are one of many that, that you are not. In the end, you will die and your body will return to the earth that we're all part of. And that that's actually okay. So it's a movement from life being all about me, that the most important thing about my life is me, which is so trained into us, I think, in contemporary life that we almost don't realize how much we're focusing on that. And competition, of course, is the best tool. forgetting to people to think that way. It's all about me versus I can contribute to something and impart a greater whole. And it's actually okay if I fail, if I lose. I don't have to breed that with shame or a sense of, my goodness, I've lost. I need to regroup and win next time. Failure just makes you a better winner in the end. Blah, blah. Not that. taking the focus off yourself. There's lots of ways to do that. Religious practices often not with that, as well as meditation. conversations, bit of humility in conversations with friends and try not to just push forward your coin about how terrible they are and how deprived you are. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up religion because that was a part, actually like more of the second part of where I wanted to go with our conversation today, because you also wrote about ⁓ religion, even though you're an atheist. ⁓ Yeah. You, wrote a book about religion. Before we talk about the book, do you, do you think that religion is the ultimate infinite game? ⁓ that's a. Interesting way calling it. ⁓ No, the core religion is a finite structure. But I think that religion, some relative moments to practices or institutions of gathering, encourage for you to look to see and keep going. So ⁓ I think that's think that's religion. best focuses you on all things. And actually, before we moved into religion, think universities at their best did that as well. I work at the University of Auckland here in New Zealand, and I think our mission is an incredible one in the university because we do, we invite not quite everyone in. You have to be qualified to play, but we are still fairly open. And we're very much invested by our blocks of students. And we really say to people, greet the solage and make of it what you will. We encourage for you to be as open as they can possibly be, as chorus and as a non-defendant if you are. So that you take in these new ideas and ideally you are transformed by it. So it's like. You've entered that infinite space in which things are possible because one, one of the characteristics of finite names that we haven't discussed specifically, but probably should is that they have a rigidity to it. So, you know, you're lifting weights or the driver license stain. You know exactly what the rules are. So repeat, repeat, repeat. So there's nothing really creatable interest in. You're just doing that thing and you're closed. So when you're lifting that weight, or somebody comes and offers you that lovely piece of chocolate cake, you're like, no, here I am, I'm lifting my weights, go away. And similarly, you're driving a car and somebody suggests you drive on the other side of the road, whatever, well, you're not gonna do that, it's not the game. So you're closed, whereas the infinite game is a kind of porousness, an openness. again, to go back to the university example, In this case, and it's very best says, because not that's a gradual opening process. Try not to reject stones before you'd have a little mentor. And I was transformed by my undergraduate degree. Over a long period of time, I just suddenly realized that there were so many different ways of seeing the world. Actually, I just hadn't fully got really understood. that human beings see the world from such different lenses. And my whole education in psychology and antichology, I'm leading to the kids. That's incredible. Can ⁓ you maybe explain what you did for your book about religion? Because I think it's extremely interesting. Thank you, Gurus. ⁓ In fact, my story begins in Utrecht. ⁓ wow. Yeah, yeah. Where I was walking with a woman called Iba. She was a facilitator. was a, still an university professor. This is about maybe 12, 15 years ago. And we got to a point where I said to her, you know what? I think I really am a priest. And she said back to me, you know what? I think I am too. So what the initial conversation what to be mean by saying we were priests when both of us were atheists and when actually I'm not going to say that a beaver because she does have some religious bibliography anyway. So we had this, we had this conversation and I started to really imagine what it would be like to be a priest and think about the function that a priest has. So I started to. I want to investigate this in two ways. I wanted to actually try out to be a secular priest. And I also wanted to move really deeply into a religion. ⁓ here the dominant religion is Christianity. Although in the latest national census in New Zealand, between 52 to 52 people indicated they had no religion. But 32 % indicated they were cryptum and the next bit of Hinduism, was three percent. So, you know, we're still very Christian equals put. So I chose Christianity because it was the religion of my country and heritage. I Christian church for a year. I read lots of Christian literature, including the entire Bible. And I listened to lots of Christian podcasts and interviewed Christian leaders. So that was that side that. But I also set myself up as a secular priest. So I set up a website, altsecularpriest.org, and I offered services that would be three Sundays a month at 5pm in person at a community centre near my home. And the theme of that service and some elements of it were repeated the following Wednesday at 7am online. That was just a half hour service. And the idea of these services, they were not all in the church, I was a king and a basic Christian form, in many ways. There was a blessing, there were ⁓ a small piece of the Buddha, Vajradhivana kind of communion. ⁓ It was not religious, so God wasn't the center of it. But I would do a talk, which I know she had bought sermons, but then ⁓ there was a lot of people. ⁓ Eventually those became provocations and there were things you put full blessings into this response time and there was singing because I love singing and that's part of churches. And the other as vector's project was that I offered cursory conversations, which I imagined as a form of pastoral care in a sense, but also I wanted to find out the issues people were struggling with and help them in my priestly way. ⁓ balance their contribution to collective life ⁓ with their own sort of well-being and capacity, which is what I thought and think priests are charged with, although I'm fully aware that religious priests are a conuxt god, some traditions and so on. And finally, ⁓ I had three vows, personal vows. these were just sins I made up and that helped structure my year. finite games, burgers. But one of them was simplicity. I, for the whole year, I bought nothing non-essential. So I was allowed to buy food, painkillers, dish washing liquid, but I didn't browse shops, do online shopping, anything like that. I bought a uniform, so just blanket great toes, which I have a limited set of toes that I wore. Then I had about hospitality thing, which meant that I was to break people when I've been about and my final well was cause others going to have. I had to have a kind of prayer routine. That was this really tricky because I was akeist and I thought you meant to pray to bogs. couldn't quite figure out how to do that for long time, but I ended up with an augmentation agent. Very interesting. And what would you say you. took away from, from that experience, what did you learn? Yeah. So, um, because it was a whole year, um, it sort of lots of learnings along the way. And the first one actually was how, what a touchy subject religion is to people. So me calling myself a priest, oh, there are a lot of people who do not use our language. And I think the kind of ego inflation of it all. They can't be the same that I suspected of like, how arrogant is this woman? ⁓ So that was a little bit of that, but it was also like, priest, ⁓ no, rinse back kind of memories of I don't really want to connect to it. So there was quite a bit of a vibe. I wanted to attract those environmentalists, social justice people who I kind of felt need of a symbol. ⁓ but they weren't so much the ones that can't do my services in the end. So that was part of it is that you can't just indeed religion and expect people to play it all. ⁓ But the other part of it, the more positive and ground and transforming part of it, was the incredible wisdom and Christian literature. I'm a psychologist and I could not believe that University education doesn't draw on some of this theology because the understanding of human petitioner poetry with Bill Ploas's experience is profound. And also I thought the people that would be most irritated by me calling myself the secular priest would be real priests or other Christians who would think, who is this upstart? But they were so welcoming. was just stunning. The Christian community that I ⁓ workbook. It was almost always consistently intrepid, consistently welcoming. ⁓ Sometimes, you know, this church that I attended, I gave a talk there the other day ⁓ about this book that I've just written, in which there are, you know, by a major part, and I said, every time I come to this church, I want to say thank you for forgiving me for being atheist. Like, Here I am and your plates defined around golden juices and you never ever turn your back on me or use the difference in our beliefs as a shield. And it's actually quite astonishing because as you know, we so often use the lease as a shield to take other people back. Yeah. So what would you say one of the more valuable takeaways? inspirationally is from, from religion. What can we learn from it? You mentioned humility earlier. ⁓ this sounds also a lot like, acceptance, openness. Yeah. Yeah. I think, ⁓ the pastor, because of course there are multiple words for Christ, I, I, I chose that one because I think it's the most generic, but the church I tended to a bit cast as. So the lead pastor at the church of Aitendu had this incredible demeanor, which is I have not seen in somebody in a secular sect in quite the same way. So he had felt this sort of humility that was so grounded that it was almost as if he disappeared. Of course he'd have literally disappeared, but somehow I felt in his... presence when he was, especially when he was delivering, ⁓ leading a service, especially men, that somehow it just so wasn't about him. He was just so much trying to grapple with an idea. You get asked to think about our goal in the world, that it was as if he was so beyond any attempt to win. anyway whatsoever. But the other thing that he held was a confidence. So this is one of the things I've been thinking about a lot, Libby, where the humility and confidence almost go together. So if you'll bear with me, I'll kind of make this logical. I'm all ears. Yeah. Yeah. So, look, you are humble to the point that you fully accepted that you were You're another embodied creature of planet Earth in which you are living your life alongside other beings that are every bit as real as you. Every bit as real as you. Every bit as deserving as you. You're just one among many. We silly kind of embrace that. That's the ultimate in humility. That's the ultimate in unjust participa. But then with that also cause a complete paper change. because I am a body creature of planet Earth, doing my best to being here among other creatures. I mean, you don't have shame, you actually have confidence because confidence is almost the counterbalance to shame. So one of the things that the pastor at the church would do sometimes was the collegeite, sometimes he would say something one way or another. clearly got a whole bunch of emails from people in the congregating like, Mark shouldn't have said that. And then he'd come back the next week and he would apologize completely non-defensively. He would say, I said this and on reflection that was inappropriate. Or he might say, I said this and this is why I said that. And I know that's the struggle, there's some people and I'm still reflecting on what that means. But if you can... Seeing that language there, that humility is also a confidence in not meaning to pretend you didn't make a mistake or justify it or deflect from it. Yeah, but I really agree with you there because if you think about what the opposite of humility is, if you're ⁓ not, ⁓ if you have zero humility, you're boasting. You're trying to brag, right? You're trying to show the world how great you are. But if you feel the need to show the world, constantly remind the world how great you are, that doesn't really inspire much confidence. Like if you're truly confident, you know that you're enough and you don't have to prove anything to anyone. So I think there's a real logical connection even between humility and confidence as well there. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think our society has encouraged a real inward turn, what I think of as an inward turn. We have, mean, my own discipline of psychology has invented this ghastly concept of self-esteem, which is this idea that you, mean, self-love is a submissive concept. And I know some people don't value those. I probably shouldn't think that either, there you go. You're forgiven. worked through why I gave it that adjective. So South of Stream is an encouragement again to focus on your sense of yourself as a self. It's a what matters here is how you feel about yourself as a self. And to me, that's the absolute opposite of what we should be doing. We should be. You know, while you and I are in conversation, my whole focus is on communicating with you. And I know there are people, listeners in the background to this. So it's not just you, but I'm certainly not thinking about me. If I was thinking about me, I don't do all be as enjoyable or interesting conversation. But that's not why I'm not thinking about me. I just not. I'm in relationship, in conversation with you. So this turn towards who I am and a sense of self-protection and need to feel good about myself concentrates this inward focus and there's other relationship ideas. that's what's up has been this one of them. Concepts like learning how to say no. I play with the people. And this has been me that I've been getting in May. Now when people sometimes say, I just to learn how to say no. find a lot of people who say that, yeah, I think you're quite good at saying no. But it's that concept of I need to protect myself. I need to protect myself. And then there's the leaning in. Don't be afraid to sum yourself up, making sure you're get what you're worth in a transactional situation for all of these different ⁓ concepts or ideas or encouragement. So encourage many to put me at the center of my life. And I think being the center of your own life is terrifying. I think it's terrifying and I sent it uninspiring because if I measure the most, yeah, you must, I'm never dying one day. Like, whoa, how that panel work out. Whereas if I don't matter, not exactly, I don't matter at all. And you know, we can get into it while I'm in my that. But my focus is outward in this moment, in this conversation or in my life on the relationships that I'm part of, the communities that I'm in, the benefit sharing someone. I am psyched because you know, the grounding of everything I value is just so much border. Okay. So that ranks them out. No, but I think it's true. I, yeah, it also makes me think, do you think that as we've become more of a secular civilization, that we lose some of these values that are usually tied to religion, but would be very useful if we could still instill those in most people? Yeah, I think so. And this relates back to the the conversation about finite innuendoes and the canons earlier in this conversation because religion is the structure that is the mandate is to focus outwards. Now that's just not how it's usually praised but in Christianity and the monocular religions, God is the focus. God is the intended The intent of frame by which you are living is in your life. And God, there's so many definitions of God. One that I can get close to is somebody who still can't use God in a way a religious person might. It's something about a... the attraction of all things to all other things. Even a force makes it sound like it's something separate, so I can't get my head around the difference between the material and the physical world. But just let's imagine that you have bought new and I have bought me a divine spark. What have you got to cause? Well, immediately we're called towards each other and it's blurred. What's your interest? What's my interest? That's not how they're thinking anymore. So religious, by invoking a concept of God that has those seats of continuous presence in them things, a real, it's very egalitarian, certainly in the Christian view, because we're all equal in the eyes of God. They're all created in God's image. Then there's this institution that's charged with ensuring that we are in that space, looking out towards those things, letting go our self-interest and moving into another space. And I can't think, and maybe you can, I can't think of a substitute in the secular world that does that. I believe there isn't a good substitute for something that God represents. I think it shows in society. think many people aren't showing much humility at all. People are very self-centered. Everyone wants to be an influencer and on Instagram and social media. ⁓ I think people are also getting more extreme, both on the left and on the right. ⁓ I'm not saying that's all just because of a lack of religion. But I think it certainly plays a role because when people start to lose that sense of community that religion can bring, they are going to look for new ways of integrating somewhere. And for some that's the extreme right and for some that's the extreme left. And thank God, no pun intended, for some that's just ⁓ the local football club. But for some it's something more extreme for sure. So no, I completely agree that there doesn't really seem to be anything ⁓ to replace it with. Yeah, and I cried in my serpiboo and conversations to replace it with something, but it was a real struggle because without the motion of God, it's like there is no with no almost touchstone that we all agree to. So one of the things about religion, this is something I haven't fully processed, but I really noticed. So Christianity, as somebody who isn't Christian and you're not Christian either, I... No, I'm not. No, I think you said it all the time. So the story of Jesus. is a story that is either myth or legend or something like that. In my kind of way of bringing it up, I just cannot imagine how Jesus put it, the Virgin rose from the dead and miracles and so on. I have, it's like there's a strange picture of the heart of the religion. And yet, This is the, I don't know, paradox or whatever, but that Christians by heaven Jesus seem to, they have a conversation that they can have with each other that I think nourishes all these positive qualities that we're talking about. So it's like you have to have a story, ⁓ a story that's been around for a long time, like Again, all the monotheistic religions have got a very, very long history. And it helps that that story has been worked over by this generation and that generation and that generation that the scripture is endlessly interpretable. did a three-day retreat as part of my secular priest year, and it was all during the COVID lockdown era. We didn't have the massive desks, so we had quite a different experience doing Europe, but we had lockdowns. And ⁓ I was intending to go to this little house near the beach, but in the end there was a lockdown that effectively all planned and meant I couldn't travel. So I did at the home a silent retreat, my husband was instructing me what to do. And I steamed for three days reading the Gospels. So four stories, Matthew, Mark, Pletton, John about Judas' life. And even I, although by that time I've been pre-evered on Bosporus Geography to Set the Bosporus, even I could read the Bosporus and get a reading of Jesus. I I'm not going into the detail of what the conclusion I came to, but my point here is that as I was reading those Bosporus over and over, that's all I could do for three days was read Gophers and War. ⁓ I just felt I was in company of these English generations of people that have worked with this material and that really mattered. It wasn't just the content had done, it was this sense of being part of this story. And then these strange features like that the elements of Jesus's life that are not possible from the point of view of a materialist. And you have to rack your head around those and I could never quite do that. So I think I've strayed a long way from your question, I think, yeah, in terms of the secular substitution is that I think it's a really difficult thing to achieve and you can't just make it up. And one of the things when I referred to quickly 3 % of people in New Zealand that now indicate no religion on that census, that number have increased Phenomenally, I don't know if it is right in front of me, but I sent him around 2001, which is 22 years earlier. was something like 30 % people said they were non-religious. So that's a map change in just 20 years. So think about Christianity as a major religion, 2000 years in the making, 50 years and being abandoned in droves. by the population. And even 32 % indicate that a Christian, but other surveys suggest that in New Zealand, about 14 % of people regularly attend a worship center and there's major eat mosquitoes as well. So, so how do you pull away this thin religion? that has been part of our practice over thousands of years and then pull something else from in the space. Short answer is you can't. No, I think so. I think so either. And I think maybe to tie both concepts together, ⁓ something that I had to think about while we're having this conversation is that I understand that religion is in a sense it's a finite game because it has a definitive rule set like there's rules you can follow and rules like if you break them you go to hell essentially so in that sense it's very structured and therefore can be classified as a finite game but a lot of the values that also come from Christianity for example are all infinite games. is to be selfless, ⁓ to help others, to ⁓ put God above you rather than... So that's also not something you can check off the list. It's like every day it needs work. Every day your fate can be tested and every day you should try to live a... your best life basically. So, but it's not something like, you lived well for 30 years. ⁓ And now you finished Christianity. Congratulations. It doesn't really matter what you do from here on out because you did well and you won basically. So it has infinite elements to it for sure, I think. Yeah, yeah, it does. And it comes back to the way in which. human life is always best structured for binaucas while being informed by the infinite gain and knowing more in an infinite gain. So without using that word, anyone with religious faith knows there are infinite gain. ⁓ again, there might be finite elements that can be quite destructive because we haven't talked about. or negative aspects of established origin fully open by exist. ⁓ So that can be quite destructive, but that turning out butters have been fascinating me. And even though I'm on one level, you could say Kessama Stoked in a sense, I suppose. also, okay, there's nothing like a project, yes, is it? Like, there's nothing like saying, can we make this work? Can we build this? And so I still say it was this huge role for trying to build the poetry, the gravitas, the practices, trying to build those into secular settings. And I haven't succeeded yet. You know, I am, I'm head of the school of psychology here at the University of Auckland. got a massive number of direct reports, people that I manage. It's a really difficult and complex role. And sometimes I will say to myself when I'm getting myself tangled and particularly if I feel undermined, if I say, oh, that person's just undermined me in public, know, the board of the staff, I've got a leaf on top of them. And then I could. myself, rescue myself and say, you know, what would a priest do? Inhabit that priest space and inhabit that human listening problems, try being that. And when I can be in that, I think I do a way better job. So just in a really personal level as a middle manager, this religious practice, which I still do, I still attend church, often not every week like I used to. It does keep these senses in the way that has been so impulsive, but also looking for that poetic way that tries to capture these concepts. I've taken to listening to Lapsonsky, because I'm way over the time of Renate Barthes, been married for a more time, 30, 70 years or something. Our old border is 35 or 36. So I'm not in that game anymore. But I have started listening to other songs again, because I realize one of my favorites is Stumble In Him, ⁓ Susie Quaptre and I realized as I listened to other songs that they're capturing some kind of vitality and vulnerability that you could call God. So Stumble In Him, for example, has lyrics like Do know the song? It's quite old. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. bring me up to speed with the lyrics. Yeah. So, so, so. Firelight will catch us stumbling in. ⁓ Our lovers alive. And so we began. Firelight may catch us stumbling in. So even that, our lovers alive and so we began. Firelight might catch us stumbling in. So it's that idea that you are just stumbling in. You just don't any other clue. ⁓ But there's so many other songs that... can capture that idea of, I'm just super vulnerable here. I have no idea how this is going to play out, but you know what? I know, I know. That's a beautiful, beautiful takeaway. Is there ⁓ anything you would like to emphasize or something we haven't touched on that you would like to discuss still before we wrap it up today? I don't think so. think it's, yeah, it's been a really, really good conversation. I'm on how did he live up there? been great. Yeah, it's, it's, it's been, it's been incredible, Nikki. Thank you so much. I really, really had a good time and yeah, I'd be very interested to, to talk again in the future if we have some, ⁓ some new material to discuss. ⁓ where can people go if they want to keep up with your work, with your research? if they, if they want to stay up to date with everything that you're working on. Well, this is such an ironic into our conversation, but I actually have a called nickyharry.com. I have to say it was a big step and not one that I took easily, but I had so many projects with separate websites. So. Nikihar.com ⁓ has the tree looks that I recommend. It has a manual. If you're interested in the intimate game concept, there's a free manual that you can download that has a whole other games, literal violence, workshop-like activities that you can play to explore the difference between finite and work games. And that's copyright free and it seems that everyone is a bit it's just users games how we got they were to change them up and so I am so that's probably the easiest way to get me also I have a little bit double-puned homepage and profile which has a mixed my academic research about person so I have a mixed name so I'm really easy to find if you just type me into them make up and small Perfect. I'll put it in the show notes for sure. But thank you so much, Nikki. I really appreciate it. Great. Good to talk with you.