Fred Donaldson, PhD - Playing by Heart
A conversation with Michael Mendizza on original play and cultural contest
FD: Ultimately we find out, that culture games can never meet the needs of our originalbelonging. It is not just belonging to family or a team or a country, but belonging to life itself. That takes a huge sense of safety and love that the contests don’t provide. But we’re never told the truth about this.
MM: You talk about contest as an addiction, that the sense of defending one’s self becomes the primary addiction, which is satisfied through secondary addictions. Let’s
go into that.
FD: Once you’ve lost that original sense of belonging to life itself, and you’re put out there essentially alone and told you need these little belongings, you end up doing the things necessary to keep those boundaries secure. Whether it's family, a gang, a team, they hook you into doing the things they support in order to keep you as a member. Membership becomes exceedingly important and you are valuable only as long as you’re a member. You are in, only as long as you abide by our terms and continue to pay allegiance to us. Once you stop, you’re not a member anymore.