On the Gamification of Cancer Survival

On the Gamification of Cancer Survival

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In this article, I thought we'd talk a bit about the mental side of cancer survival. I think it's no understatement, that a cancer diagnosis is one of the most daunting and stressful events in your life. So, today I want to give you a perspective, that may just be able to change that, and make this dire thing into – as utterly insane as that sounds – a game.

Please bear with me, as I explain how that would help you and how in the world you'd ever be able to gamify your outliving cancer. Also, everything I'll talk about in this article applies to any and every chronic ailment or chronic challenge in your life.

We at Marchward have thus far been accompanying three cancer patients with their work to live better and longer lives despite their diseases. One thing I've noticed in the two patients I've been accompanying is that working toward defeating your cancer can be quite the draining and numbing process. I think this is a perfectly natural experience.

As much as humans can be confrontational, we all strive for peace, understanding, and love. We mayn't always do so efficiently or effectively, yet strive for it we still do. Viewing your disease as a fight you need to win by defeating your opponent invariably will put you into a stressed state of mind with significant sympathetic activation. This is the correct physiological response to being in a fight.

The problem, of course, is that the work for cancer patients to live longer and better doesn't end contrary to natural fights. This is due to the fact that it is an infinite game. The whole point of 'fighting' against cancer is simply to continue fighting. This also means, that cancer patients will inevitably experience the same exhaustion and crisis as soldiers under constant bombardment, simply because psychologically, there's no difference. Both soldiers and cancer patients fighting for their lives are under constant attack and thus under constant sympathetic activation.

This is a problem. Our bodies can't handle constant sympathetic activation. We need balance. We need to be able to shift to and from sympathetic activation in response to acute demands of our environment. What's worse, not only does continuous sympathetic activation drain you, but it also fuels your cancer and weakens your defence against it.¹

Great, that doesn't at all increase your stress, does it? Let me propose a fix, at least. I hate giving you problems without solutions.

I've already called outliving cancer an infinite game, because I think it's an apt description. Basically, a finite game would be a game, where winning or losing ends the game, whereas an infinite game would be a game, where winning perpetuates the game and losing ends it. To my knowledge, James P. Carse popularised the terms. He categorises various challenges and games in life into those two categories.

For example, what to you is winning in life? Is it related to dying? Probably not, but for some it may be. Nonetheless, to you life would thus be an infinite game, because whatever winning in life means for you has nothing to do with ending the game, but rather to be able to play the game on in a fashion amenable to you. On the other hand, if you were to play chess, I'd presume, that your idea of winning has something to do with ending the game in your opponents defeat, simply because that is how winning is defined in the game of chess.

I propose framing the project of living a better and longer life with your cancer as an infinite game, where the whole point of this game is to keep playing it. After all, as long as you are playing it, you're still veritably living.

This may seem like a ludicrous prospect on its face, but let me explain why it can be incredibly helpful to you, both in terms of mental and spiritual peace, as well as actual cancer survival.

First let me ask you this: What is it you truly desire, when embarking on your journey to live a longer and better life with your cancer? Is it at all important to you to win the game by defeating your opponent – meaning, is your idea of success, that you must be cured of cancer –, or is it perhaps far more important, that your cancer doesn't kill you?

If I were a betting man, I'd wager a significant sum, that the latter is far more important to you.

I may be right, or I may not be. Still, it bears considering, that as long as you don't actively lose your game against your cancer, you'll still be alive and kicking. Thus, I propose, that the whole project of living longer and better with your cancer would best be framed as an infinite game, where the single goal of playing is not losing. For as long as you're not losing, you're alive.

And to me, living with your cancer and decidedly not succumbing to it, is the whole point of living a longer and better life. Perhaps the same is true for you. But, how do we go about turning this into a game?

Well, we reframe your battle against cancer to a game with cancer. Over the course of your treatment, you'll be doing various things to kill or heal your cancer cells. These cancer cells will in turn sometimes adapt. This is the basic structure of the game. You make a move to heal, the cancer makes a move to survive. And on and on it goes.

Obviously, the game of outliving cancer isn't exactly a game you chose, nor is it played with stakes you offered freely yourself. This makes the above reframe quite difficult mentally, because you didn't choose this. This has been thrust upon you.

As a counter I'd make the argument, that your entire life has been thrust upon you, with all its trials and tribulation, all its joys and beauties. Most of us don't complain about life in general. We usually complain about some part of life we don't want to play. And yet, none of us enlisted to play the grand game of life at all, not in the specifics we dislike, nor in the generalities we enjoy.

I'd use that same frame for outliving cancer, to play with your cancer instead of fighting against it. You didn't ask to play this game. You shouldn't have to play this game. Nonetheless, you are now faced with the options of either not playing the game at all – and thus lead a worse and shorter life – or playing the game to the best of your ability despite not wanting to play it – and thus lead a better and longer life.

The best part about this is, that if you reframe this challenge with your cancer into a game, you get to relax a bit. You get to go back to enjoying the grander game of life of which your game of outliving cancer is but a small part. Obviously, it won't make your fear vanish, or your uncertainty, or those sleepless nights. At least not all of them.

But, I daresay, it will give you more joy, more love, less stress, and a higher chance at getting to continue to play the grander game of life, for the greatest threat to sufferers of chronic ailments – be they of the body or the mind – is demoralisation. You shall lose, the moment you give up. Without you playing the game, there is no game to be played.

Reframing this outliving of your cancer as a game isn't about you wanting to play this dire game, it's about reclaiming a bit more of your life, health, and sanity.

And... who knows, perhaps you do get to beat your cancer once and for all.

But you shan't know, if don't you play.

Play toward swift healing and lasting health.

May God bless you with a good and long game,
Merlin L. Marquard