Competition

[ MB 3/6/07 ]

Hi Ted,

Great topic. Everyone has to take a stand on this issue throughout their lives. I can largely mark different phases in my personal development and intellectual history by the evolution of my thoughts on competition. Just now I had so many thoughts in just a few minutes thst I wrote an outline ! I'll share that with you and fill it in soon.

- Mike

competition:

People who avoid it are the most competitive. "Transcending" compeition. Frank Oles, IBM friend: "I don't run with other people because I'm too competitive."

economic

early naive thinking: capitalism is evil, don't need competition.

Wisdom of invisible hand of self-interest; but zero sum game is wrong: extended by game theory. (How econ 101 has developed) (A Beautiful Mind game theory revelation.)

need competition or people get complacent (Communism turned millions of Russian men into lazy alcoholics.)

Hegelian progression here !

sports

I'm a fan because it's life exaggerated: wins and losses are so well-defined.

Atheletes are highly competitive people but know you can't obsess on the result, have to focus on your game and believe in yourself.

Chariots of Fire; winning for glory of God vs. angry (competitive) winning to prove something; either motivatation can make a champion.

at the workplace:

competing with other companies or other research groups a good thing, competing with fellow team members is bad and even self-destructive

competing with other research scientists at IBM: good motivation but needs to be tempered (focus on self-improvement and your own plan, don't waste energy comparing yourself to others).

own personal story: 3 older brothers, 3 younger sisters; so competitive with men but not with women

[ TZ 3/21/07 ]

Hi Mike,

I'm going back to your last dream.

The subject of competition struck several chords with me.

Especially when I was younger, I decided "competition" was injurious to social relations. (Older, I chuckle over my fondness for decreeing judgments on the world.) I "resolved" to not be "competitive". But I was astonished to see it cropping up frequently in my life, in spite of pious intentions. I wondered if I was inciting competitiveness. Then I withdrew that judgment, and decided 'competitiveness' is more of a cultural given in certain relationships (especially male to male).

Aw, gee whiz, women compete, too, and many a man loves to watch that.

The phrase, pursuit of excellence, plays better with me.

I went to a favorite source of quotes, to see if I could find us something quotable.
http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?homesearch=competition
http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?homesearch=competitive&startsearch=Search

The notion that ideas/concepts evolve sounds interesting. Where is a compelling example, though?

Good to hear from you, Ted. I enjoyed both of your emails. I'm 100% with you in all of your characterizations of my dream dichotomy. A lot of modern dream therapy takes the view that the dreamer is dreaming about himself, and I don't always buy that. But I agree that this was a dream about myself and a conflict within. Back at Yale Joe Alexander (remember Joe ?) told me that Mark Anthony in Cleopatra (we took English together) reminded him of me, torn as he was between duty and his lustful love for Cleopatra. The conflict between duty/family values and lusting after babes remains, maybe why I haven't gotten married.

There's another aspect to the dream, about a healthy competition between you and me. There's an intellectual side, where it's accepted that we're evenly matched and so don't take the outcome too seriously. Then there's the masculine side, i.e. who's better at charming the ladies, where in the dream (as in life I think) we're actually both happy if we're both doing well. The dichotomy is present again (intellectual vs. sexual) but here it's in the context of playing games with a buddy.

[ TZ, Feb 21, 2007 ]

The dream dichotomy in you sounds plausible. Is it something like "work & duty" = German, "play & spontaneity" = Polynesian? Is it something like "Apollonian" = German and "Dionysian" = Polynesian?

Thomas Mann dichotomized Europe into North(Germany) and South (Italy). I think his maternal side had connections to "the south". His story, Death in Venice, describes how an artist from the North went to Venice to rejuvenate-- but he overdid the southerly vibes thing.

[ MB, feb 14, 2007 ]

I had a remarkable dream this morning about us. It was complicated and went on and on but I can only remember a few snippets. I was visiting you but it wasn't anyplace you've ever actually lived. There were German relatives and Polynesian friends and family around. You and I were having a good time, competing with each other in certain games in a way that was entertaining to the Polynesian crowd. We would go from game to game, playing each game one match at a time but coming back to it. None of the games were actual games I know of. Some were cerebral and others had an athletic element. For one of the cerebral games, we had each won a match.Then we returned to another cerebral game where I'd won the only match, but you said the score there was 1-1 so I protested. It didn't matter much as mainly we were interested in impressing the Polynesian women. We were flirting with them with sexual puns that they enjoyed.

A German grandmother (or great-grandmother) was sitting isolated in a chair and did not approve of the goings-on. So you told me to tell her a particular story and then at the end of it, hold up a small sign which had a one-syllable German word, starting with the letter "Z": the sign at the end of the story was supposed to make her laugh. So I told here the story, which was somewhat off color, and then held up the sign, But the sign apparently made things worse, as she was upset. I looked to my right where I thought you were, but instead of you there was a middle-aged European feminist-type who was angry and demanded an explanation. I had a tough time with the explanation. Then I went off and found you, angry that you'd pulled that trick on me but not so much as in this dream we were merry pranksters.