- sociability
A simple game of cards and dice which opens up daring conversations
From adolescence onwards, one of the great struggles we face is how to reconcile our own desires with those we find socially acceptable. The best encounters with friends are those where we can talk honestly about what's going on in our lives, sharing triumphs, joys, fears and longings - without the usual shyness or reserve.
Product description
This confessions game to play with friends guarantees that the warmest, most fascinating conversations won’t have to be left to chance. With the help of a dice and some cards, the game asks participants to answer a series of questions around career, sex, money, relationships, family, gently inviting everyone to share important bits of themselves in an intimate and playful atmosphere. By thinking of confessions as a game – as a sociable and exploratory activity, as opposed to a risky affair – the cards prompt us to open ourselves up to interesting and exhilarating conversations, allow us to be a little more honest around the most intimate aspects of ourselves.
Example Cards:
What did you call your partner in your most heated argument?
In your most depressed moods, what do you tell yourself about your career?
What are you ashamed of people knowing about you and money?
Describe in some detail the first time you had sex.
What do you hate most about your children?
The dark, rich colours have been designed to reflect the atmosphere of a secret club or drinking spot where one might naturally feel the thrill of a slightly out-of-bounds or illicit activity, as a reminder of our less polished and more risky selves.
How to Play the Game
You might…
Play with a group of friends to prompt conversation and ease players into the art of playful revelation.
Use the cards as an exploratory prompt with a partner to delve into some aspect of yourselves or the relationship that otherwise feels a little out of bounds or hard to bring to the table.
Sort through the cards on your own when you’re feeling in the mood for a little inner enquiry, particularly around your career or relationship choices.
100 playing cards with dice |100 x 90 x 60mm
THE CONFESSIONS GAME - SCHOOL OF LIFE
“Do you really want to know what philosophy offers humanity? Philosophy offers wisdom.” – Marcus Aurelius
The Stoics saw philosophy rather differently from how the discipline is conceived today. For them, it wasn’t merely an intellectual framework or a dispassionate collection of ideas, but a whole way of life (askêsis), something closer to what we would now think of as a religion, yet without the superstition: a guide to how one should think, act and behave. Stoicism wasn’t meant to be confined to the classroom, it was to be put to use during the most challenging moments of our lives. Montaigne, a profound follower of the Stoics, neatly summarised the scale of the Stoic ambition: “To philosophise is to learn to die.” “Friendship is always helpful, yet too often love causes harm.” – Seneca
The Stoics far preferred friendship to romantic love, for they felt that it is in friendship that we properly honour the ambitions that our societies falsely associate with relationships. With our friends, we can be calm, nonpossessive, reasonable, generous and empathetic; in other words, properly kind and giving, whereas love finds us agitated, frequently mean and too often self-righteous. Being asked to be someone’s friend should be deemed the greatest honour; by contrast, an invitation to be someone’s lover should – given what too often happens in couples – be the very poor consolation prize.
53 cards | 70mm x 100m x 25mm