The Passion Economy

One of my favorite movies is The Game.  In this psychological thriller Michael Douglas plays a tightly-wound investment banker whose success in business is matched only by his emotionless personal life. On his 48th birthday Michael’s brother (played by Sean Penn) gives him a voucher to a mysterious company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Michael begrudgingly redeems the voucher and, in the weeks that follow, CRS proceeds to destroy his life. One day, after being blackmailed, chased by gunmen, and accidentally shooting (and killing) his own brother, Michael decides that life’s not worth living and jumps off a high rise. Michael freefalls towards the ground, crashes through a glass skylight but, rather than meeting his demise, lands safely onto a giant cushion to the applause of his close friends and brother.  As he comes to himself, Michael begins to understand that the events that transpired since his birthday were an elaborately staged game.  And, as he feels his body well up with a profound mix of emotion, he is reborn.

A few weeks ago I asked productivity guru and entrepreneur Stever Robbins: what are some methods for helping people to take bigger risks in their lives? Stever replied with an interesting thought: people have a very well defined threshold for risk. The strategy should not be to force or lure them across that threshold, but rather to reframe risk so that they become more risk-tolerant without even realizing it. While it would be super expensive (and probably illegal) to run a business like CRS, it does illustrate Stever’s point on the power of reframing risk, in this case by creating an alternate reality. 

So, with The Game as an inspiration, I’m curious to explore what aspects of “risk-taking through world-making” are on offer today. Here are a few I’ve stumbled upon:
- Visualization consultancies: e.g. Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, in which individuals and organizations envision a future state and then move to embody it.
- Community-building off-sites: e.g. the Mankind Project, where participants are cut off from the world for several days and let down their guard as they adjust to an alternate reality (in this vein, Army Basic Training Boot Camps; Otherworld adventures; company off-sites).
- Location-based games: e.g. scvngr, where participants use GPS-enabled devices to solve puzzles by finding items strewn about a city, sometimes in inaccessible or risky locations.
- Location-based plays: e.g. an experimental play at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which the audience views inside different venues throughout the city. For example, in one scene actors have a scripted fight at a restaurant that is otherwise operating as usual.

Each one of these covers one aspect (or more) of risk-taking through world-making, and I’m looking forward to discovering what else is out there.