The Game of Life
1.
There are two kinds of games: finite games and infinite games. A finite game is played to win; an infinite game is played to keep playing. Finite games are defined by rules and boundaries, while infinite games cannot be defined. Our lives are infinite games. Life holds only possibilities for its own continuation. Of course, countless finite games take place within a life. But every finite game is played by choice. We can choose finite games that help us keep playing, and winning or losing is only a moment within that play.
Yet we forget that we are players in an infinite game. We treat life as a finite game, and even try to forget that we chose the finite games ourselves. Each role becomes surrounded by limits and expectations defined by others, and we feel compelled to keep performing it. Because success in a finite game can only be measured competitively, we become increasingly conscious of others and increasingly impatient. Eventually, when the final scene we imagined fails to arrive, we feel bitterness and emptiness.
2.
The final scene I had imagined for our founding team was not a parting back in Pallet Town, where the adventure began. But that was where I left the team. We had formed in April 2025, so we had spent a little over a year together. As Warren Buffett put it, only when the tide goes out do you discover who has been swimming naked. It was only when the basic assumptions behind our service began to crumble, one by one, and we had to consider a pivot that I saw my own nakedness. Desires I had buried within the team, along with questions about the AI era, led me to realize that I could not wait for the tide to come back in. That was how my first venture ended. We parted well, without any serious scars. Still, the situation I found myself in was not what I had pictured when leaving. I blamed myself for the poor decisions I had made and felt hollow about the time that had passed.
After taking enough time to rest, I began looking for new startup ideas. People around me talked about how much they had earned in a month or the funding they had raised, and I felt far behind. I grew impatient to resume the game of entrepreneurship. I came up with and researched various ideas: an agent to help small service businesses, such as interior design studios, with marketing; a Duolingo for blue-collar workers; a fashion shopping agent built around one’s wardrobe. They all seemed reasonably promising. Yet the thought of working on any one of them for at least ten years made it impossible to start. I was afraid that, when the tide went out again, my future self would once more find a reason why I had to leave.
3.
Around this time, my girlfriend and I also broke up. Since starting the company, I had cut back on seeing friends and kept mostly my cofounder and girlfriend close. With both now gone, I felt completely alone. Sitting absentmindedly in the café near my home, turning the pages of a book, I suddenly felt that something was wrong. The principles I had followed for years no longer fit me. Cracks began to appear in the meanings I had given my life. Fundamental questions followed one another: Why do I start companies? What kind of life do I want? Why do I live? Choosing a domain and an idea for my next venture would have to come after that.
4.
The first thing I did was identify the events that had had the greatest impact on my life. I began by digging into the emotions I had felt then. I thought that if I peeled away the masks, one by one, and set priorities around the underlying forms of my desires and happiness, I might discover why I lived. But when I looked closely, many of the desires I held were not really mine. As Lacan said, we desire the desire of the Other. So many of my desires were about meeting expectations defined by society and other people. Trying to hold on to everything means holding on to nothing. I spent time resolving or letting go of those desires, keeping only the few that truly mattered to me.
One desire I worked through was the wish to repay my parents as soon as possible. During my school years, they invested heavily in me despite their limited means. Even after helping me so much, they felt sorry that they did not have enough to give me more. I was deeply grateful for their devotion and wanted to repay them financially before they grew old. I wanted to buy them a nice car and a nice bag. I also wanted to be a son they could be even prouder of. But this sense of lack kept influencing my decisions. The thought that I had to make a lot of money quickly made me more afraid of failure. So I decided to let this desire go. I told my parents that I wanted to put it down, and, as always, they supported my happiness. That lifted one weight from my heart.
Other desires, such as seeking a wide range of experiences, felt fundamental. Even when someone tells me not to do something, I have to try it for myself. Trying and experiencing things are enjoyable in themselves. I am curious about how the world works. I want to experience becoming so immersed in one thing that I stake my life on it, and I want to appreciate cultures and beautiful landscapes around the world. I want to experience so much in this life. I think I am more curious than most people. Simple curiosity, without much further thought, was what first drew me to programming and later to joining a startup. Behind the desire to make a lot of money was also a desire for more experiences. Even while letting go of other desires, I could not put this one down, so I gave it a high priority.
Interestingly, the core desires I arrived at shared three underlying dimensions. The first was beauty, the second growth, and the last contributing to a community. For instance, the desire for varied experiences can be expressed through beauty and growth. The desire to help create a society where people live happier lives can be expressed through beauty and contribution. These three seem to be the underlying forms of desire within me, beyond which I cannot reduce them any further.
5.
I had found the desires that moved me, but I still questioned whether they could be a purpose for living. At first, I thought maximizing happiness was life’s only purpose. On reflection, though, happiness seemed more like a byproduct. In a happy moment, we do not recognize it as happiness. It becomes happiness only after we interpret the time that has passed and give it meaning. A retrospective interpretation cannot be the purpose that leads a life.
Then I realized that the question “why” itself was contradictory. Objects are made with an idea and a purpose, so their essence precedes their existence. For human beings, existence comes first. We are simply thrown into this world. The fundamental reason I was born is that the Big Bang brought the universe into existence, and no one knows why the Big Bang happened. Just as the universe has no purpose, neither does the life given to a human being. Even someone as great as Elon Musk was not born with a purpose. He actively used his possibilities to take part in finite games with purposes and created further possibilities. All we have is the possibility of giving ourselves any purpose.
6.
I had returned to the starting point. I had tried to find life’s purpose and discovered only that I could not find it. But that alone was enough. Because I had realized that no task had been assigned to me, I was, paradoxically, free to set any purpose for myself.
Sartre argued that to believe is to know that one believes, and to know that one believes is no longer to believe. The moment I become aware that I believe, that belief is reduced to one attitude I am adopting; perfect belief is therefore impossible. In other words, it is impossible to be certain that any belief or purpose is absolutely right. Every purpose is one I have chosen anyway. I can simply choose finite games that satisfy the desires within me and enjoy playing them. I do not need to be bound by my past, either. When we find meaning in the past, that meaning is something we brought to it in order to interpret it. When, as players in an infinite game, we leave the future open and enjoy the present moment, more possibilities emerge. That is how we keep life going.
7.
One day the tide will go out again, and I do not know what I will be holding on to then. But I now know that fear and anticipation are, in the end, the same emotion. If I create my own meaning and purpose and enjoy playing in pursuit of beauty, growth, and contribution to a community, other possibilities will open up. Because life is an infinite game.