Games and Guardians 155or it may mean questioning your own assumptions, even
what kind of person you are.
beliefs and assumptions
We generalize from our experience to form our beliefs, and
use past experience to guide us in the present and future.
We have beliefs about ourselves, other people and the kind
of world we live in. Our beliefs create our expectations, they
are our guiding principles, they draw our boundaries, our
personal borders. We take many beliefs on trust. We trust
the evidence of our senses, although sometimes they can
mislead us, and we trust what others tell us, even though
they may be mistaken. From the inside, beliefs seem to be
true. Looked at from the outside they are the ideas we trust
and we act as ifthey were true. Beliefs are the individual
rules we live by. What we believe decides whether we allow
ourselves to live under Roman law or common law, whether
we play zero sum games, meta games or games without end,
and whether we can break out of the ring of simple learn-
ing into the charmed circle of generative learning. When
you believe that one man’s loss is another man’s gain, then
playing life as a zero sum game makes perfect sense. Our ac-
tions are always perfectly rational given the belief they are
based on.
Our beliefs may, however, be out of date or mistaken.
Considering the extent to which they influence our lives, we
pay them very little attention. We never think about
whether they are useful, liberating or repressive. We con-
fuse them with facts. We consider them as unalterable as
gravity, death and taxes. We are more likely to question our
legislation than our beliefs, yet our beliefs are our internal
legislation.
Imagine for a moment that you are a country. What kind
of laws do you live under? Are these rules and laws just? How
much freedom do they give you? Are you living under
Roman law or common law, and would you be subject to