The Game of the Powerful: What Soros, Musk, and Toy Soldiers Teach Us About Power and Creativity

There's a fascinating anecdote I came across about an activist investor, a figure who for many is like the boogeyman. I'm talking about George Soros, a Hungarian-born man who owns a powerful investment fund. In an interview, Soros revealed that his favorite childhood game was playing with metal soldiers. In those moments, he felt like a god, dictating orders to his tiny soldiers in imaginary wars. He decided who lived and who died in battle.

This revelation fuels the legend surrounding Soros: with his six billion dollars, it's said he manipulates the world, banking institutions, and even governments. If you can't find toilet paper at your local convenience store one day, it's surely George Soros' fault, according to conspiracy theorists. But can a man with six billion dollars really cause so much harm? Consider that the world's richest man, Elon Musk, has over four hundred billion dollars to his name. What does that mean in terms of power and influence?

Soros isn't the only one playing god. Elon Musk has stated that since his youth, he's imagined everything is a simulation and that he's the protagonist. How can we contradict him? This man has surpassed three hundred billion dollars and remains at the top of the world's richest list, far ahead of Jeff Bezos. If this is all a simulation, Musk has obviously proven his advantage in the game.

I remember my own childhood games with plastic soldiers. I washed windows at home and helped my cousins paint the railing of my uncle's house in exchange for a few coins. With the money they gave us, we bought huge bags full of soldiers in fixed positions. We spent hours creating complex and epic stories. We loved complicating the lives of our characters: we organized opposing factions and assigned them challenging missions.

When the soldiers were about to achieve their goals, there was always a traitor in the squad who ruined everything. This dynamic reminds me of the plots in series like "The Walking Dead," where the good guys always have a plan to defeat the bad guys, but in the end, it turns out that the villains have their own tricks up their sleeves.

Alan Moore, the mystical British writer behind works like "V for Vendetta" and "Watchmen," shares a similar view on creativity. As a child, he dreamed of playing with action figures of superheroes like Superman, Batman, or Spiderman. However, there weren't those kinds of toys available in his time; there were only soldiers. This led him to use his imagination to grant superpowers to those little warriors.

Lack of resources can be a spark for creativity. Moore reflects on how that scarcity pushed him to invent extraordinary abilities for his soldiers. If one had a broken arm, it became a hero with a special power; if another lost a leg, it acquired the ability to fly.

This same dynamic was reflected in my childhood games. My cousins and I transformed any corner of the yard or the interior of the house into epic scenarios: a dense forest among the tall grasses or a battlefield among rubble. We used blankets to create mountains and caves; each fold was a new adventure.

Through play, I developed a curious and creative mind capable of telling complex and engaging stories. Creativity flourished when I faced these restrictions; forced to think outside the box and find innovative solutions.

Soros and Moore taught me that power doesn't always lie in money or ideal circumstances; it often arises from ingenuity and imagination. In this sense, it's important to preserve as much as possible of that child who played with soldiers, that creative part ready to challenge the norms and create new narratives.

Whenever we face a limitation, we must remember: that restriction can be our best ally to unleash creativity and find new ways to play with the stories we want to tell. The Stoics say, "The obstacle is the way."

Prince talked about "this game called life," here we can imitate Musk a bit and assume ourselves as protagonists and responsible for our own narrative. What kind of story are we willing to tell today?