The Goal of the Game

During my most recent summer in Kraków, I became famous, or infamous, for being able to ‘disappear’. I don’t dance and therefore don’t like clubs. So, if that was the next non-negocable item on the nocturnal agenda, I could duck behind a bus stand and be half way to Bronowice Małe before anyone even noticed I was gone.

Recently, my father decided that it would be a good idea for us to go to an Airsoft course. That was how I found myself staring at an array of particle board partitions in a storage facility somewhere in El Monte. I had never partaken in any kind of activity like this.

No one bothered to explain the rules, but I quickly got the basic idea. Participants were divided into two groups at each end of the building. They then ran toward the other side of the obstacle course, while shooting plastic pellets at members of the other group. If you got shot, you were out of the round.
My first few tries I got quickly peppered with bullets. Once I became acquainted with the course, I realized that my ability to ‘disappear’ would serve me well. It proved easy to skulk to the enemy’s end of the course without getting shot at, or even seen.

Upon reaching the enemy camp unscathed for the first time, I immediately felt a swell of pride. Then I realized that my compatriots reached the other end of the course only to turn around and rush back into the melee.

The only thing I could think as I saw this was: ‘Why?’ In the world I live in you get ahead by achieving your goal with the least amount of time, effort and risk. No student would re-submit a paper for grading after he gets an A on it. No commando would risk getting sprayed with bullets after reaching his target, right?
Apparently not.
Some of the people were clearly aficionados of the sport. Many of them were fully equipped with laser sights, and protective gear, and every kind of gun imaginable. Most of it looked military grade. I wondered why so many felt it necessary to deck themselves out like Seal Team Six just to run around a dusty warehouse in California.
Actually, I felt more like an anthropologist than a Marine. I’d figured the sport out in less than an hour. While making it through the course I pondered what could motivate Airsoft’s most avid followers. The only conclusion I came to was that that the human psyche remains a mystery. After about 90 minutes I got board and went to dinner. An experienced 10 year old ‘commando’ expressed surprise that we were leaving so early.

After I left, I realized that I completely missed the point of the game. My Texan father had to explain it to me:
People are divided into 2 separate teams, not simply groups. The point is not simply to make it to the other side, but to strategize as a team to ‘kill’ all of the opposing team members as you advance towards their side of the course. In this way the gun has not only a defensive, but also an offensive purpose. It also makes the game more strategically difficult than I first thought.

This was absolutely mind boggling to me. As long as you get the promotion, making sure that other candidates are promoted or fired is just wasted energy. However, this also served as a valuable reminder. Even in the region of one’s birth, culture can seem more foreign than those from the farthest corners of the world. I have heard the famous expression that there is no ‘I’ in team. Then again, I never could spell.