Introducing… Entelechy!

Another new game from Hasbro...

Well, not quite yet but it’s got creativity and possibility galore.

I came across this word in a literary article in AGNI, written by Sven Birkerts. In his opening he remarks…

“Dizzied as I am by the velocity of change in the world, I have to say I’m also rapt in the contemplation of it – so many things trading one form for another as if en route to some appointed destination. The Greek philosophers had a lovely word for this. Entelechy.”

The article goes on not to be about technology or the current political climate or any other number of fast-changing landscapes on the horizon.

It is about something much smaller and bigger.

The article quite simply reflects on the evolution of the magazine itself from hand-folded stapled papers to a website to a newsletter to a blog.

This is no great thing. Certainly not unique to publishing. And yet, it points to something big.

In an ever-changing identity, what is at the heart?

What is the sustaining essence of anything?

Birkerts reflects further…

“What is it that defines a brand – the mysterious X-factor that confers identity? If it’s not in the consistent outer semblance of a thing – as it’s clearly not in this case – it must somehow be inward, some essence of content. A continuity of tone, a signature of sensibility, a quality that lives over and above what any one group of editors, readers, and consulting angels might impose.”

He is, of course, talking about AGNI. But what is at the heart of our country? The essence of our individual identity?

The times we are living in beg bigger questions.

Entelechy is the conditions under which a potential thing becomes actualized. This is fascinating to me on a macro scale given the current cultural conditions that are allowing for radical political possibilities.

And it is also compelling on a personal note as I feel myself shedding one identity without really knowing the next. It is a palpable but intangible chaotic evolution.

Entelechy sounds like a mash-up of entropy and telepathy.

This feels fairly accurate in nondescript terms it is. In order for one thing to morph into another there has to be some kind of breakdown of the old. Entropy.

And in order for some new entity to be born there must be a vision of what it is to become. Even if only on a cellular level. Telepathy.

Can’t you kind of see the game?

Take a scenario, add a particular circumstance and guess what will become actualized. Everyone could vote on what sounded most likely?

Sort of like our current election, with a mercurial essence.