It is a game that we played often in the evenings with family or friends, during my childhood. It consisted of, once we were all neatly lined up around the table, that each one of us started a sentence, and that the other continued it, and then the next person did too, until it became a story. One had to be able to repeat everything that had previously been said before he could add a meaningful piece of sentence to the story. Sometimes, in the middle of the game, a new player would slip in and another would slip away. Sometimes a friend who was visiting spoke in a foreign language, which sometimes he was the only one who understood it, and that added to the difficulty of the game.
If we did not help each other, or if we did not agree to grant each other the right to write down the previous sentences, the game ended quickly: no one could remember more than five, six, or seven sentences that were repeated before his turn. One day, the record was set at fourteen sentences, which is still held by one of my friends who used the mnemonic methods, about which we knew nothing.
This game can be made less difficult if players are allowed to take notes while others are speaking, or if there are no strict requirements related to the accuracy of the sentences that are to be repeated, or if one has the right to help his neighbour and form alliances.
This game says a lot about the players, their obsessions, desires, timidity, audacity, or eagerness for competition or cooperation. Depending on one’s position in relation with the others in the game, you can even see specific conversations between two players, who speak to each other, in the middle of other sentences.
This game also says a lot about the group, by how it evolves and creates a story. The story can be coherent or absurd, romantic or violent, erotic or banal, dramatic or greedy, horrible or wacky.
The game can also take two radically different forms, depending on whether the players help the speaker remember the previous texts, or if, on the contrary, they do everything to blur each other’s minds because they are anxious to individually prevail.
This game is more than just a game. It is a wonderful metaphor of the history of every civilization: each generation writes a sentence in order to continue the novel begun by the previous generations. Each generation makes many efforts to remember what has been left to them by the previous ones, and to transmit it to the next, adding her own creation to the novel. A civilization lasts longer when the previous generation tries to help its successor preserve its heritage.
As such, we understand better why a civilization collapses when a lineage neglects what its predecessor passed down. Consequently, no one writes, nothing is transmitted, and a separation occurs. It is also true of a family, a company, or a nation.
A family holds on to the story that parents pass on to their children. A company lasts if the collective narrative of all those who work there retains a meaning, beyond that of each individual person. A nation, likewise, is enriched in space and time by all the discourses that are exchanged and knitted together, as well as the transmitted knowledge and languages that are intertwined with it.
I invite you to play this game during the last days of this summer break. And to find the freedoms in order to better understand what each of you means for others, what the collective means for each person, and the possibilities of what we can build together. Furthermore, it may also help realize that life can be a very nice game, almost eternal, if we play together while helping and respecting each other; and laughing loudly.
j@attali.com