Humanity isn’t perfect, but it’s all we’ve got

My friend is a professional trivia writer and host.

Partly because he’s a lover of knowledge, patterns and history, but also because he loves bringing people together to make memories.

In fact, the way he builds programs is by reverse engineering fun. Eli starts from the memorable user experience that he wants to create, and works his backwards from there.

What types of answers would create strong emotional responses?
What topics and themes would be enjoyable for a particular group of people?
What questions would motivate their commitment to playing the game fully?
How could the overall experience not only be fun, but also create memories that bonded the group together and gave them stories to tell for years to come?

Clearly, writing trivia is has little to do with collecting facts and everything to do with connecting people. In fact, most games are like that. Whatever we think is the big thing is really just a vehicle for something bigger. Something more human.

Whether it’s going to sporting events, gambling at the casino, attending church, going out to dinner, what’s the thing behind the thing that keeps us coming back? Other people. We are the reasons for everything we do.

Like my old friend used to say, at a certain point you stop caring about what’s on the table, and focus on who’s sitting around it.

Humanity isn’t perfect, but it’s all we’ve got.

It’s time to crack open the illusion that we’re separate from each other. It’s time to stop pretending that we aren’t the reason we’re here. In a world that’s constantly trying to isolate us from each other, we need to tap into our reserves of social course.

Rollo coined this term in the sixties, defining social courage as the courage to relate to other human beings, the capacity to risk one’s self in the hope of achieving meaningful intimacy, in relationships that, over time, demand increasing openness.

It’s scary stuff. Rollo reminds us that the risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be.

Will we grow in actualization, or will it destroy us? It’s hard to tell. But the one thing we can be certain of, the psychologist says, is that if we let ourselves fully into the relationship for good or evil, we will not come out unaffected.

In a world that’s trying its damndest to keep us disconnected from each other, perhaps this is the real game.

Connecting with others is far from trivial, it’s monumental.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Which of your favorite things is really just a vehicle for bringing people together?