Playing Authentic Games
Intentions for 2026
Happy January!
I love the start of the year, the collective closing of one chapter and the opening of the next. Some people go through the holiday season with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads; for me, it’s all the possible intentions I might try on, like outfits, and the many Sliding Door-eque possibilities for the new year.
December ends with a flurry of writing. In the past, these were long lists of “goals,” tangible achievements I could check off like Santa’s list. But gradually I’ve drifted away from crisp binary outcomes to something softer and more abstract, gifts prepared for the tastes of my subconscious rather than the thinking mind.
Ultimately, where I landed for 2026 is this: Play authentic games.
Why games?
Because the idea of a game reminds me that the rules are arbitrary.
When a ball goes out of bounds, why does the opponent get a point in tennis, but not in soccer? Is one rule more universally “correct” than the other?
I doubt it. If you see a group of children playing some new game they invented, you’ll notice that rules are slapped on for all sorts of reasons, the most common of which seems to be a kid litigating that what she did counts and should grant her the advantage. Usually a big lively debate ensues. Eventually, a decision gets made that “this is now how we’re going to play the game,” everyone mutters their agreement, and merriment ensues. (Or not: sometimes the players can’t agree and the game falls apart.)
The important thing is, remembering that rules are arbitrary gives games a certain lightness. When something is universal law, say gravity in the physical world, there’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Gravity is serious business.
But most of life is not that. I should do well at my job. I need to find a partner. I want my kids to be happy. I need to eat healthier — none of these are universal laws.
These rules are as fluid as my imagination.
Why authentic games?
Because there are an infinite number of games that could be played, so it’s important to choose the right games for me, the ones I genuinely opt into playing rather than the ones I might have been shoved into.
It can be disorienting when everyone else is playing a game they’re obsessed with, and their entire worldview shapeshifts around this game. It becomes their reality, as if they’re in a The Matrix-like simulation. Every one of their words and actions implies that we all exist in the frame of playing this game, whether it’s status, or wealth, or approval, or what have you.
But this is not true! I get to choose my games!
Sometimes, two games can look similar from the outside but actually have a different set of rules. For example, a casual observer might not really notice the difference between tag and freeze tag, or baseball and cricket, or Build a great team vs. Build a great product.
But the rules make the game. It’s important for me to distinguish the actual game I am playing from the ones that others might be playing, even if we’re all doing our thing in the same space.
Why play authentic games?
Because the idea of play reminds me that at their best, games are meant to be rewarding. It’s a privilege to be alive, in an expansive world, with a beating heart. There’s a kid-in-a-candy-store type of delight to realize the agency of discovering and choosing games that will fulfill me, whether it’s for a few minutes or for a lifetime.
Of course, this isn’t to say that every second of gameplay is fun. Ask any experienced player who loves their game whether there are mountains of frustration (yes). Whether there are oceans of doubt (yes). Rivers of sorrow, fields of boredom, plateaus of stagnation (yes, yes, yes).
But the best games are not simply the ones that help us amusingly pass the time. They challenge us. They allow us to dive into a state of flow where we forget about our lonesome little egos. The best games leave us tired and satisfied and alive. The best games help us discover who we are and who we can really be.
One of my favorite origin stories starts, like many such stories do, with a Great and All-Knowing Deity.
One day, this Deity decided to play a game. They split Themself into hundreds of thousands of pieces, little soul-shards brimming with the spark of All-Knowing Greatness.
The Deity then scattered these pieces of Themself all over the world in a vast and cosmic game of hide-and-seek.
If one of those pieces of Themself encountered another piece of Themself, would they be able to recognize that they came from the same All-Knowing Greatness? Would they laugh and scream with delight upon this finding, as children do?
Each of us is a soul-shard of that Deity. Our daily encounters are an expression of this hide-and-seek game. What fun, to think of each flicker of eye contact, each smile, each conversation, as a chance to uncover our secret connection! What a beautiful way to look at the world.
I love this story because it reminds me that some of the best games are those we play with ourselves. Games of curiosity and personal growth. Games of alchemy, to transmute my boredom into amusement, my fear into fuel. Games whose leaderboards show me only different incarnations of myself.
I hope 2026 brings you some wonderful games, and I hope you have tremendous fun playing them.
Some authentic games I am choosing to play this year (bonus content for paying subscribers):
