Reclaiming the Music: The Soul of the Game

Reclaiming the Music: The Soul of the Game

We’ve all played musical chairs as children. Music plays, and everyone circles around, waiting for it to stop. When it does, you scramble for a seat. The one left standing is out.

At the heart of the game is the music—its start, its stop, its rhythm. As long as it’s a simple, innocent game, there's no issue. But what happens when this game becomes a qualification round for something bigger? When the outcome affects real opportunities or larger consequences?

That’s when the stakes rise—and so does the temptation to control the music.

When the person controlling the music also controls the outcome, the game is no longer fair. The music, once organic and playful, becomes artificial. It’s manipulated to serve an agenda.

And soon, everyone playing knows it. They realize the game is rigged. It stops being a test of timing or strategy. It becomes a performance—an illusion. A joke played on its participants.

So, what do we do?

Do we change the person playing the music? Record the whole event for transparency? Swap out the sponsors, change the venue?

Maybe. But those are surface-level fixes.

The real issue is deeper—the soul of the game itself has been compromised. It's been captured, co-opted by those who want to steer the outcome toward a "greater plan."

And that’s what the real fight is about:

Reclaiming the soul of the game. Reclaiming the music.

When we take back control of the music—its fairness, its spontaneity—we return to the roots of the game. We make sure it belongs to no one, and everyone. The soul of the game should never be proprietary. It should be free.

Only then does the game become real again.