There’s the playing field. Can you see it? It’s over there. Well, you can hardly see it now, that’s not your fault, because there are so many people on it. Everybody and their granny has walked onto the playing field. It has been leveled, they’ve been told. Except it hasn’t. You see, it’s not a game anymore once the audience is on the field. The audience storms the field after the game. They celebrate and tell themselves it’s their victory too. Except it isn’t. The victory belongs to whomever conquered, not the field, but himself and has overcome his own limitations.
The real game is hitting a tiny ball with a bat, with nothing but your eyes and hands. The real game is running as fast as you can, on a good pair of running shoes and nothing else. The real game is climbing a mountain with minimal gear. The real game is healing yourself amidst plenty of reasons never to get up again. The real game is doing something for you and nobody else. The real game is starting something because you are called to it, to experience or learn something, just for your the benefit of your own self improvement. Why does a child learn to walk? Plenty of people have learned to walk before him. Why learn to talk? Plenty of people already know how to talk. Why create a painting? Plenty of people have painted things. Or built something. Or improved something. Why learn to make fire when we have matches and firestarters?
There are two kinds of people. There are people who want to celebrate the victory. And there are those who want to play the game.
Whenever anyone claims the playing field has been leveled, take a good look. Chances are, the playing field has merely been usurped by a different game. Extra gear has been added so that your granny can get to the top of the mountain with a jetpack. Suppose the game was climbing a mountain with your bare hands. Has the playing field been leveled? Not for that game. That game hasn’t changed a bit. While everyone is zipping about around the mountain on their gas burners, the real players do what they always did. They strap on their gear and start climbing.
But what about the prize? What about making fuck tons of money? Everyone can do that now! No they can’t. In the long run, there is no prize money if everybody’s a winner. You have to split that a billion ways. Besides, who would watch a game where every player who takes a shot always scores?
The real game is about accepting limits to the tricks and tools you get to use and getting good at scaling that mountain. Because, you see, sooner or later somebody’s granny runs out of jet fuel and gets stranded on the mountain and it’s going to take a search party to find and rescue her.
So when the rolling wave overtakes you, don’t panic. Let it. Continue honing your craft. In the end, every skill becomes a niche. There are still glassblowers, did you know that? They make the things no factory can make because they’re too difficult, too exceptional, too specific. There are single business owner welders who do the fiddly jobs that no other welding business takes on, and get paid good money, because they require a specialization that has become very rare.
There are software engineers who have specialized in COBOL. They’ve been making good money for years, maintaining old systems that people who crave the bleeding edge won’t touch.
Stop following the rolling wave. Let people think they’ve leveled the playing field, let them celebrate the victories they imagine they can now achieve, when in truth they’re just joining a different game. Let others panic and leave both games, the old and the new, thinking they are the same, so that you can continue playing the old game, the game you like so much. There are still farriers. There are pidgeon breeders. Eventually, there are two kinds of people. Those who run to catch the next wave, and those who have found love and hung on to it while the flood washed over them. And found that after the flood, they had maintained a skill that’s now rare.