The first playable person I'd ever met was blending beans in my ex-boyfriend's apartment. He was making a utilitarian smoothie, which meant a can of northern beans, frozen spinach, Huel protein powder, and some fresh kale. Pools of moisture collect below the Whole Foods bags while the blender whirs, displeased by its own guts. His name was Pond.
Pond was alive. He had bleached blonde hair with black roots beneath, contrasting with his tan skin, and he wore purple and green tank tops and camouflage pants. Playability has two components: the first is to be awake. It is to realize that life is quite finite and to make calculated bets about where you want yours to go. The second is to have the confidence and the willpower to pursue it.
Pond lived his life by two axes: fun and impact. The inconveniences that bothered other people — others' opinions, inertia, indecision — plagued him not. He knew what mattered to him, and he had a knack for getting what he wanted, whether a deal for his company, a free butterfly tattoo on his bicep, or the girl with the long legs and indented dimples. He would walk up to strangers and ask to play card games. When he traveled alone, he found housing via his charisma and luck in a good techno club. When Pond looked at you, you felt nervous. His questions pierced at precisely what he was curious on. He had already dropped out of school and was subletting in Los Angeles for a few months, working on a startup that he would later sell. He knew that life is a game, refused to play by the Truman Show.
Playable people wind their personalities around high confidence and sheer willpower. They are unconcerned about the opinions of others, and they are effective at simply making things happen. But their eyes are brighter, if a little flightier. They ask you questions you have never thought of and have answers that could not possibly have been cached. To be playable is to be original, unwilling to assimilate beyond the individual. They have these untemplated qualities, as though their next token prediction is always a little broken.
As I've moved to stranger places, I've met more of the playable.
They are sometimes odd. When you realize you don't actually have to do anything you don't want to, you become much more willing to bend reality to your will. I met Alex from X. He dropped out of school — not from Harvard, but nearly failed out his state school from his severe ADHD. He looks me in the eyes (he's had to teach himself to do this) and takes a bite of my sandwich. He explains how his company works, and I feel pinned by the confidence in his words.
The game landscape is shifting, and it favors the odd. In a previous life, you got As and Bs at Groton, went to Harvard, drank for four years, and landed a banking job by meeting your boss, some guy who was visiting his old professors.
Today, if you start a startup and a nonprofit at Thomas Jefferson High School (VA) and start coding when you're 9 and play the oboe, you may be admitted into Cornell. At Cornell, if you join Cornell Venture Capital Club and major in computer engineering and mathematics with a 3.95 GPA, then you may spend your first year out of school at Morgan Stanley. If you outperform the other associates, you may at last find yourself safe at Apollo. You may, with great effort, rest at last.
The traditional tracks are still possible, but they are more competitive for a fewer number of slots. The threat of AI continues to press at the edges; make it in the next few years or be trapped in the permanent underclass. Raw deal compared to the allure of new industry, which promises fame and fortune in a TikTok video, startups, crypto, new media, and new politics.
The future belongs to those who take it. It always has.