Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    I have two guesses:
    
    1.	Winning is easier to measure, to objectify, than playing well.
    	I can be sure I won, but I will always have some uncertainty
    	about whether I played well.  I am more comfortable with 
    	certainty than uncertainty.
    
    2.	As a culture, we are increasingly aware of the product of a
    	process and decreasingly aware of the process itself. This
    	is most clearly manifested in fast food, cake mix, etc. We
    	worship process occasionally in restorations like Williamsburg,
    	but most of our behavior is aimed at refining the product by
    	changing the process, and not refining the process by changing
    	the product.  We experience product more than process.

    This is just "The end justifies the means", isn't it?  I agree that
    this attitude is more prevalent today than it seemed in years
    past.  Just read the front page of the newspapers lately.
    				Steve

    What?! Winning more important than playing well? Nigel, you can't
    possibly belive that! I rufuse to believe it's true. 
    
    	Jon

        Personally, I suspect I belong in the Victorian era (at least on
        this issue). It seems to me that an awful lot of what's wrong
        with the world has to do with this focus on winning, on being
        the best. Face it, you can't ever have it all. No matter what
        you have there's always more, no matter what the subject is. If
        you try to have it all, you'll only be disappointed. If you rate
        yourself on how much you've achieved or obtained, there will
        always be someone who is better, something you don't have.
        
        In the realm of sports, I'm not very found of competition, but
        rather of stretching and testing myself. For instance, I play
        "Survival"--capture the flag with paint-guns. It's certainly a
        sport you can be very competitive and cut-throat about. There
        are plenty of players who're out to "kill or be killed" in a
        more-or-less metaphorical manner. My approach however is to
        recognize that the other team's players are very good, that
        surviving, capturing the flag, recovering your lost flag and the
        such are very difficult. I compete only with myself. Can I be
        quiet enough? fast enough? accurate enough alert enough?
        
        In relations between the sexes someone asked somewhere in this
        file what you do if you're in a good relationship and then
        "something better comes along"? What a disastrous attitude! No
        matter how wonderful your spouse the chances are that there are
        lots of people with whom the chemistry is stronger, with whom
        you could be at least as happy or even happier--in the abstract.
        The chances are also very good that you will meet these people.
        If you allow your self to lust after "the best" you'll never be
        happy. You drop this one 'cuz "something better comes along",
        and then that one drops you 'cuz something better than you comes
        along! and on and on... 
        
        You can be as happy as happy can be with someone short of
        perfection with whom you've shared and worked, and striven, and
        fought and struggled and adjusted. Our lives and loves are what
        we make them. If we play as well as possible, if we love as
        deeply as possible, if we focus on what we can achieve and on
        what we have, rather than the notion of being the best or having
        the most, that is where true happiness lies.
        
        What does it matter if there are people more suited to playing
        survival than I am. If I play as well as I can, if I enjoy what
        I am doing, if I stretch myself and extend my limits is that not
        good enough? Is that not fun? What matters it if there are women
        who in the abstract are more exciting than my wife? Where were
        they for the last 17 years? How can they, no matter how
        alluring, offer that compares with our shared experiences? 
        
        Does it matter that Digital is not the biggest computer company
        (nor even the second at this point)? Isn't it more important
        that we do the right thing? Isn't our corporate culture what
        keeps us here, rather than the magnitude of our success? Isn't
        the fact that we're so good that IBM has to stay on it's toes
        enough? Isn't our corporate dedication to morality and to our
        customers the key? I think we are successful as we are as a
        side-effect of how good we are and what we do, rather than those
        things just being a means towards the success. 
        
        If you play the game well, winning will often be a side effect.
        There may be other ways to win. And on the other hand, if you
        play real hard merely in order to win, you may find you haven't
        the focus necessary to play real well. You can lose because you
        try to hard. It is much better for the goal to be to play well
        and for winning to be the pleasant outcome, than for winning to
        be the goal and the play merely the means. 
        
        JimB. 

Losing is probably an okay thing if you are allowed to "lose
with honor", or "save face", or "live to fight another day".
Nobody ever won every chess game they played, but all the
patzers keep coming back for another game.

What stinks is when losing means annihilation.  Then it's
very hard not to concentrate on winning at (almost) any cost.
Your moral dilemma is also a survival dilemma.  I mean, the
American Indians didn't just _lose_ a game or something, they
WERE damn near annihilated.  There are plenty of other
examples in history.

Look at something a lot closer to home: if you're walking
down the street in a city and someone jumps you, see how
fast it escalates: karate kicks to knives to guns.  In a
disheartening number of environments in this country, almost
any type of dispute can escalate senselessly into a life or
death confrontation.  Maybe because some people (and this
also applies to organizations) think too much about winning,
while others have so little to lose that they'll keep on
escalating til they double-or-nothing you to death.

The sports I play or do are generally for fun.  One of my favorites, 
a good game of volleyball on the beach, can be ruined by a person 
who is worried about who wins.

And I feel that life is kinda like that too.  Obscession with
winning, with self, with ego, with the short term, and with $$$,
are all part of the same problem mindset.

If winning in sports, and in life, were put into perspective, I 
believe that the earth and the species would be better off.

Sorry about that.  

	~Mike

    I wonder if .7 didn't hit the mark with "perspective."  Winning
    is a matter of viewpoint and seems to have many dimensions.  I remember
    competing with a friend for grades, honors, etc. from kindergarten
    through college.  I always ran behind (grade pt. American Legion
    award, Honor Society, best looking girl, ad nauseum).  He "won"
    it all.  Unfortunately, he became obscessed with winning and
    eventuually killed himself.  He lost.
    
    Vince Lombardi said something to the effect that, "Winning isn't
    everything, it's the only thing."  His Greenbay Packers won a lot
    of games but where are they today?  It was temporary.
    
    Didn't Geo Washington lose every battle - except the last one? 
    Would we stand by a Geo. Washington today after he lost a few?
    
    I don't know if or when things changed but I suspect we confuse
    (1) wars with battles, (2) ends with means, (3) form with substance
    and even winning with losing.  What say you?
    
    John

I don't like competing...  I'm not interested in being *the best* at any one
particular thing.  I found out, about 3rd grade, that I could be the best at any
one particular thing if I wanted it badly enough, and sacrificed the rest of the
world to be the best in that one thing.

I like to be able to do a lot of different things... specialization is for
insects.  That means that I can't be the best, but then again, I have some of
everything.  I think that I have a lot more of life that way...

Also, Competition implies that you are doing something that someone else could
do, maybe better...  Each of us are unique, find the thing that only you can do,
and do it well.  Now *that's* fullfillment!

Jim. 

	re: .0, .3, et al

	Winning may have become more important at the same time
	people lost respect for those who abided by the "rules".
	This was perhaps at the turn of the century in the US, when
	scandals and robber barons were common (ok, I've been reading
	early 20th century history, rather than Victorian!).

	Some of these folk simply changed the rules when they didn't like 
	the ones currently in effect - even if they'd made those other rules 
	in the first place.  Then they could claim to have played by the
	rules when they won... IF they won.

		-hh

	Other cynical quotes of modern times:

	"Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything"  (may be a
		variation of earlier quote?)

	"Nice guys finish last"

	"The meek shall inherit the earth - about a 6' by 3' plot"

    My opinion --- people playing the game sometimes confuse good
    intentions with best effort.  They aren't the same!  The old adage
    "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" seems very true
    to me.  Motives aren't worth much without action behind them.
    
    When intentions are given the same weight as effort, losers are
    excused from trying, and winning does becomes the only thing of
    value.
    
    We often learn this as children, because parents may praise us not
    for our failed best efforts, but only for our successes.
    
    Gloria