The beginner's game

Arjun’s note: Welcome to Edition 15. I write about the game-like quality to life and how you should persist in repeatedly playing the beginner’s game. If you liked this, please share the newsletter email with a friend/ family member and ask them to subscribe :).

There is a game-like quality to the human experience. The rules exist and the exceptions keep it interesting. A rotating cast of characters help you live it up and understand the true meaning of alcohol poisoning. More importantly, the game compels you to keep dancing till the music is playing. Your heels can be cut, soles blistered and it would not throw a hitch in your favourite dance move. You move with abandon because you never know when the music will end.

In this made-up world, my favourite game is the beginner’s game. Whenever you start something new, you will stumble and fall flat on your face. The fall will wipe away your grin but it’s part of the process. You progressively get worse at the beginning. Talent is a bastard child and no one takes ownership. All you can own is effort and reps. 

The more attempts you make, the more likely you are to get better. It is a hard fought battle between delusion and optimism. Your enthusiasm cannot be dimmed because that’s all you have. Your self-doubt has to be locked in a drawer with its keys thrown out the window. Anything less and you will falter. You will lie, groaning, moaning, embarrassed, afraid, emasculated, an absolute degenerate. Everyone else wins but you because you gave up. This is the beginner’s game and it takes no prisoners.

When you start anything new, you look up to past legends and contemporary greats. If you look too close or for too long, you will get disheartened and relinquish ambition. The legends became legendary over months and years of practice. Your craft is incomparable today to their polished craft. Similarly, you only see giants when you look at the modern-day greats but they see nothing. They are still not at their best and the belief that they never will be keeps them great. You cannot compete with them at their games. That is hara kiri for your ambition.

Walk in their footsteps till you can outpace their steps. The only way to get ahead is to go through their routines till you discover what works for you. You imitate their mannerisms and memorise their playbook. It feels enough but you realise that it changes every season. They stay ahead because of paranoia and you have to embrace that madness.

Keeping up feels difficult because no one recognises you at the beginning. You are either too young or too old or too new or too jaded. The validation you need today does not come with the work. It’s painful because your work is good but you’re not good enough to be recognised. You are a beginner and that identity rankles but you have to carry it with you till you can set it down.

Along the way, your ambition will be belittled and you will be pushed to dream differently. At this juncture, realise why you started. Anchor yourself to your childhood dream. Let that irrational vision loom large and remember that no one has to believe in this vision except for you. If you let your dream float away in the wind like a stray balloon, someone else will catch it and worse, they will pop it into nothingness.

Your dreams are fragile as a beginner. They lack substance and can be swayed with the slightest of gestures. You have to hold on even when your fingers bleed with the pressure and go numb. A beginner’s dream is taller than the Empire State building because it hasn’t yet collided with reality. It’s conceived from sheer will, egregious naivety and stubborn passions. It bears seeing through at any cost.

Play your beginner’s game often. You will win some games and lose others. Nevertheless, raise your hand and volunteer for these games. Every time you play, you learn and improve. If all you do is improve, you will eventually win. All that matters in victory is who chooses to play the game with you.