Play the Infinite Game
Between Great and Mastery lies a field to explore
"If you want to find the secrets of the universe,
think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
Nikola Tesla
A few months ago I was on a discovery call.
At one point I asked what made him interested in collaborating.
He said, “You seem really premium. Like you just get it.”
Cue that one little internal voice ready to drag me into imposter syndrome. But another part of me leaned in because he was pointing to something deeper. I do not care much for being perceived as premium or talented. But I do understand that perception is part of the game.
The old game. The finite one.
And I think many of us are hungry for something else.
If you are unfamiliar with the distinction, the idea of finite and infinite games comes from James P. Carse, and was later brought in the open by Simon Sinek. A finite game is played to win. There are fixed rules, clear competitors, a measurable outcome. Someone comes out on top, someone does not, and eventually the whistle blows.
Our modern life is obsessed with finite games.
Status. Metrics. Performance. Market share. Who’s ahead. Who’s behind. Who’s more visible, more booked, more followed, more decorated, more desirable. Even our self-worth gets dragged into the arena.
We have been conditioned to orient around scoreboards.
The infinite game on the other hand, asks something else of us.
It’s not played to win, but to keep playing. To remain in right relationship with the work, with what is asking to be built through us. It stretches us beyond ego and into devotion. Beyond the need to dominate and into the responsibility to sustain aliveness.
Nature understands this better than we do.
Walk into a forest and look around. Yes, you see competition for sunlight and soil. But the forest is not organizing itself around a podium. There’s no finish line for a tree once it has towered above the rest of the canopy. It doesn’t get a medal and then decides to move to a new domain to test its dominance in the regional towering-trees-championships. Its height does not diminish the rest of the forest. The purpose is vitality.
But in our capitalist conditioning we’d probably privatize the forest and slap an entry price on it “Come see the majestic towering trees” with a golden fence around the ‘champion’ trunk.
Because here we are - modern mankind - trying to reduce life to a series of finite games, while wondering why so much of it feels empty and extractive. We consume each other and plunder our planet, and we lose culture and connection at an alarming rate for the sake of growth.
The finite game is not particularly leading us to ‘thrive’ as a species.
So what does playing the infinite game look like?
To understand, let me walk you into one of my peculiar hobbies.
I secretly and gleefully - when the world is fast asleep - watch videos of people deep in their craft. A woodworker carving phenomenal tables from walnut slabs. Someone skilled in the art of making Indigo dye. Or closer to home, on the foothills of Mt. Agung seeing the last of the Pande - Balinese blacksmiths - carve knives, daggers and keris with astonishing accuracy.
Like the towering tree, none of these people are playing to win in the trivial sense. They don’t care for applause. They’re in relationship with the material.
And herein lies the secret.
I believe the difference between great and mastery is frequency.
A new field of precision unlocks when you become truly intentional.
Call it authentic. Call it congruent. To be intentional carries an aligned charge.
What I learn from these people at the pinnacle of their craft is that every stroke has a purpose. They conduct experiments, sure, but when it’s time to do the thing, to shape the object, to hold the room, to carve the wood, to guide the elements in the way their heart’s imagined it, they are deadly precise. And it comes with an ease.
Last week, my wife Eva took a bakery workshop at Bali Baking Institute. Led by Jean Marie Lanio a Master Baker and his companion Robin Couchourel. After two days under their guidance she came home with the most perfect ciabattas, croissants, pain au chocolats, baguettes, and sourdoughs. As if she’d been doing nothing else for the past 20 years. The crisp, the crunch, the taste, the aesthetic, the love. All flawless. We ended up making several families very happy with the haul.
But what stayed with me most was what she said afterwards:
”They made the most difficult actions seem ridiculously straightforward.”
There it is.
Mastery.
And I do not believe that comes merely from talent, nor even from knowledge alone.
It comes from the quality of presence brought into the thing.
Tomorrow I begin another collaboration with a friend and truly gifted coach, guiding him in his narrative. It will be our fourth time working together in six years. He has taught me in many ways over the years, and I believe I have offered him an honest and deepening mirror in return.
The stakes are higher now. Which means the approach must change.
When we were exploring the scope, I scribbled a line on a piece of paper:
If we aim for a whole new level,
then we have to consciously approach each element
with that becoming in mind.
It means, the level we operate at doesn’t just change with us having more knowledge or awareness - that simply leads to being great, we have to go beyond, to let intentionality encompass all we do.
Every step of the way. Environment matters, preparation matters, joy, openness, heart, flexibility, the food we eat, the space we meet, the rituals and practices we bring in. And I hope you understand, it’s not about lavishness or luxury, that doesn’t even need to be there, but it’s about setting up every piece with the dedication of a Balinese Pande.
To stop treating our surrounding conditions as irrelevant.
When in your life have you been so encompassed, so immersed in your work, your love, your creation, that every action - out of a million choices - was the right one and you did it without batting an eye?
That’s the frequency we’re after.
We are all capable of this. I truly believe that. We all need different ways to reach it, some go through fantastic feats of physicality, others pursue science and the intellect, or art, or the language of love and devotion.
It doesn’t matter so much what the path is.
It matters how we walk it.
Be intentional.
And you’ll touch infinity.
I’m Roel W.T. Cruys. Writer. Dad. Poet. Narrative architect.
Tea for the Curious is an exploration on human, nature, art.
Professionally, I collaborate with leaders, innovators, and artists to find their Ethos and the language to communicate it.
Let’s connect, here or here.