Every morning, Nunzio the electrician arrives to work in his well-maintained white late model pick-up truck. Nunzio is a master electrician, and proud of it. Upon arrival he always takes the time to finish a call on his cell phone befor presenting himself for work. He wears designer jeans, designer boots, and a fitted sports jacket, and from this wardrobe alone as well as his leisurely way of showing up in the mornings, one could hardly blame you for thinking him somewhat full of himself. While this may be true, there is also something innately likable about Nunzio, and you may find it hard to sustain your initial reservations once you have actually met him.
For all that it is his practice to stress personal service in sales meetings with his clients, Nunzio has a habit of disappearing once a job us underway, only surfacing again to collect progress payments. He may refer to himself as an electrician, but the truth is that he spends far more of his time concerned with sales than he does with electronics.
In the years I have known Nunzio one catchphrase I have become used to hearing is his cheery, "Johnny, I've got your back." In spite of this, I have become used to the idea that if ever I do need Nunzio's help he is in reality the last person I can count on. He will always have his reasons - reasons why this is simply not a good time for him, and in the end I'll always end up doing the job myself, or having to rely on someone else. None of this affects Nunzio, however, and as long as I have known him he has always held me in his debt. Nunzio is very good at holding others in his debt without taking any responsibility for coming through for them. But in an industry with a high turnover of staff and labourers, with many genuinely skilled electricians unable to sustain themselves in business from one year to the next, Nunzio goes from strength to strength, making profits for himself whatever the circumstances. And how does he achieve this? Because he is a Player in the great Game.
Players come in all shapes and sizes. They can be the Wall Street tycoon, but they can just as easily be the local real estate agent, school principal, or, as in the case of Nunzio, a contractor. The degree of finesse with which they ply their trade may vary, but at heart they are all essentially the same. So then, what are these distinguishing features, which make the Players so different from the rest of us?
Firstly, Players are born, not made. The Player is compulsive; they cannot but play. Their manipulations, their deceitfulness, their twisting and bending the truth to always reflect well on them and further their aims is more of a reflex than a conscious choice. Being a Player is not a matter of choice, but destiny.
So endemic is the web of lies and deceit spun by the Players that they themselves become unable to distinguish fact from fiction. The artificial reality they create is as much a fact of life for them as it is for us. It's a very normal human trait to bend the truth - to some extent - to suit our purposes, with the result that we all have a different perspective on events. These perspectives will not diverge entirely, however, and some semblance of the original facts will remain.
The Players use these facts as tools - as base elements in the world they construct. From them they weave together elaborate situations to be experienced by the rest of us. There is something psychologically distinctive about the Players, so that one might almost call them mad, but their own form of madness is linked inextricably to the society in which they live, so that to call them all insane would be to tar all of society with the same brush
One quality common to all Players worth highlighting is an absolute absence of empathy. This cannot be stressed strongly enough. To say that players lack empathy is actually a gross understatement. The Player is wholly indifferent to anyone's suffering but their own. Nunzio, is completely blind to the fact that he never follows through on his extravagant commitments, yet he is acutely aware of even the pettiest slight to his reputation. To the extent that another strokes their vanity, or is useful in some way, they are tolerated. If these conditions are, for whatever reason, no longer met, the other simply ceases to exist.
Another quality that Players share is an uncanny ability to stay on message. Be it O.J. Simpson protesting his innocence, or Dick Cheney justifying the Bush doctrine, they live by Talleyrand's famous edict, "qui s'excuse, s'accuse" ( he who excuses himself, accuses himself). No matter what information is provided to refute their claims, they stick to their guns to the bitter end. As much as this sounds pathological, it actually works very much in their favor. The sheer relentlessness, with which they maintain their position, eventually makes us unsure of our own.
Players have no interest in hard labour, be it mentally or physically demanding. They exist in the realms of sales and promotion and of handling matters related to money. As for the creation of the product which they sell, Players have no interest in how that comes about. While we struggle to compete by producing newer and better products, the Players remain cool and collected, selling them on at vast profits to themselves, benefiting from our hard labour and bearing none of the signs of stress that afflict the rest of us. Energetic they may seem, but busy they are not.
Players are naturally drawn to wealth and power. It makes sense that those jobs, social settings and tribes with the highest status will attract the greatest concentration of Players.
So the next time you watch a sales pitch on television, a political address, or a sermon from a charismatic preacher, take amount and ask yourself : Is this a Player? Am I being played?
For all that it is his practice to stress personal service in sales meetings with his clients, Nunzio has a habit of disappearing once a job us underway, only surfacing again to collect progress payments. He may refer to himself as an electrician, but the truth is that he spends far more of his time concerned with sales than he does with electronics.
In the years I have known Nunzio one catchphrase I have become used to hearing is his cheery, "Johnny, I've got your back." In spite of this, I have become used to the idea that if ever I do need Nunzio's help he is in reality the last person I can count on. He will always have his reasons - reasons why this is simply not a good time for him, and in the end I'll always end up doing the job myself, or having to rely on someone else. None of this affects Nunzio, however, and as long as I have known him he has always held me in his debt. Nunzio is very good at holding others in his debt without taking any responsibility for coming through for them. But in an industry with a high turnover of staff and labourers, with many genuinely skilled electricians unable to sustain themselves in business from one year to the next, Nunzio goes from strength to strength, making profits for himself whatever the circumstances. And how does he achieve this? Because he is a Player in the great Game.
Players come in all shapes and sizes. They can be the Wall Street tycoon, but they can just as easily be the local real estate agent, school principal, or, as in the case of Nunzio, a contractor. The degree of finesse with which they ply their trade may vary, but at heart they are all essentially the same. So then, what are these distinguishing features, which make the Players so different from the rest of us?
Firstly, Players are born, not made. The Player is compulsive; they cannot but play. Their manipulations, their deceitfulness, their twisting and bending the truth to always reflect well on them and further their aims is more of a reflex than a conscious choice. Being a Player is not a matter of choice, but destiny.
So endemic is the web of lies and deceit spun by the Players that they themselves become unable to distinguish fact from fiction. The artificial reality they create is as much a fact of life for them as it is for us. It's a very normal human trait to bend the truth - to some extent - to suit our purposes, with the result that we all have a different perspective on events. These perspectives will not diverge entirely, however, and some semblance of the original facts will remain.
The Players use these facts as tools - as base elements in the world they construct. From them they weave together elaborate situations to be experienced by the rest of us. There is something psychologically distinctive about the Players, so that one might almost call them mad, but their own form of madness is linked inextricably to the society in which they live, so that to call them all insane would be to tar all of society with the same brush
One quality common to all Players worth highlighting is an absolute absence of empathy. This cannot be stressed strongly enough. To say that players lack empathy is actually a gross understatement. The Player is wholly indifferent to anyone's suffering but their own. Nunzio, is completely blind to the fact that he never follows through on his extravagant commitments, yet he is acutely aware of even the pettiest slight to his reputation. To the extent that another strokes their vanity, or is useful in some way, they are tolerated. If these conditions are, for whatever reason, no longer met, the other simply ceases to exist.
Another quality that Players share is an uncanny ability to stay on message. Be it O.J. Simpson protesting his innocence, or Dick Cheney justifying the Bush doctrine, they live by Talleyrand's famous edict, "qui s'excuse, s'accuse" ( he who excuses himself, accuses himself). No matter what information is provided to refute their claims, they stick to their guns to the bitter end. As much as this sounds pathological, it actually works very much in their favor. The sheer relentlessness, with which they maintain their position, eventually makes us unsure of our own.
Players have no interest in hard labour, be it mentally or physically demanding. They exist in the realms of sales and promotion and of handling matters related to money. As for the creation of the product which they sell, Players have no interest in how that comes about. While we struggle to compete by producing newer and better products, the Players remain cool and collected, selling them on at vast profits to themselves, benefiting from our hard labour and bearing none of the signs of stress that afflict the rest of us. Energetic they may seem, but busy they are not.
Players are naturally drawn to wealth and power. It makes sense that those jobs, social settings and tribes with the highest status will attract the greatest concentration of Players.
So the next time you watch a sales pitch on television, a political address, or a sermon from a charismatic preacher, take amount and ask yourself : Is this a Player? Am I being played?
About the Author:
John Berling Hardy exposes the mind control we're exposed to as a society. For more of his writings please visit www.playingtheplayers.com For more of his writings please visit www.playingtheplayers.com.
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