Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth --Ender (Orson Scott Card)
Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us survive --Graff (Orson Scott Card)
He chuckled. "Non, non," he said. "M'sieur Alf, look around you. Look inside yourself. Life is all power games. Everyone wants to be the God of something, tout le monde. It's just a question of how big a kingdom we can each carve ourselves, how high we can raise. --Count Cagliosro (Alfred Bester)
One way of perceiving the life that we live and the workings around it is that of a game in which we are all players and pawns in each other's game of survival and dominance.
Every person has an agenda - a goal in life. Initially our goal in life is to survive and to establish a goal. Once we have a goal, we seek its accomplishment.
At midlife, we look back on what we have accomplished, our goal, and consider again if we have attained it. There is as much of a crisis in having a goal that is too difficult to attain as there is one that is attained at a younger age, with no more game to play. Both are causes for depression.
The important thing to remember in playing the game of life is that each person will manipulate the others to try to attain their goal. Sometimes our goals coincide and we are able to help each other along the way. Other times our goals clash and a conflict arises. For the most part, the conflict is rare except when people have tied their lives together later to find they are heading in opposite directions. It is rare that the clash of goals occurs outside of this for normally there is more than enough happiness to go around and satisfy all who seek it. However, there are times in career where people will reach for the same object and some must be refused.