"For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name," wrote Grantland Rice, "he writes -- not that you won or lost -- but how you played the game." This verse has been paraphrased and repeated innumerable times over the last century, particularly to disconsolate youngsters the aftermath of a tough loss. Now, generations later, another writer is pondering the philosophical significance of winning and losing. British travel writer Pico Iyer moved to Japan in 1992. Every other night, he plays pickup doubles table tennis games at his local health club. Well, "games" might not be the right word. Rather, they switch partners every five minutes and keep battling as if nothing happened, as he described in a recent TED Talk. "Everybody is trying really hard to win points," Iyer says, "but nobody is keeping track of who is winning games. After an hour or so of furious exertion, I can honestly tell you that not knowing who has won feels like the ultimate victory." No fan of table tennis could reasonably assert that Japan is not competitive. In fact, both the Japanese women's and men's teams are ranked second in the world behind only China. As Iyer explains, there is simply a different cultural view of competing in the Land of the Rising Sun. "In Japan, it's been said," he in turn said, "they have created a competitive spirit without competition." Iyer goes on to give an overview of the history of table tennis, giving special attention to the Ping-Pong Diplomacy between the US and China in the early 1970s. "What I learned, though, at my regular games in Japan is more what could be called the inner sport of global domination," he says, "sometimes known as life." Iyer then delves into his own history, which, like table tennis, began in England. "As a boy growing up in England, I was taught that the point of a game was to win, but in Japan, I'm encouraged to believe that, really, the point of a game is to make as many people as possible around you feel that they are winners," he explains. "In Japan, a game of ping-pong is really like an act of love," Iyer rhapsodizes. "You're learning how to play with somebody, rather than against her." Iyer compares playing table tennis, especially in non-scoring, partner-swapping doubles, to singing a small part in a larger chorus. The harmony created, he says, is much more than the sum if its parts. "You come to see that the opposite of winning isn't losing," he says, "it's failing to see the larger picture." Whether or not the Japanese doubles approach catches on in the many hyper-competitive clubs around the world, it is certainly worth exploring as a way to maximize the stress relief-to-stress creation ratio. "Playing doubles in Japan really relieves me of all my anxiety," Iyer reports. "At the end of an evening, I notice everybody is filing out in a more or less equal state of delight." Even the most incurably competitive players could benefit from practicing this mindset, helping them to stay centered and focused on the point at hand, and thus far more likely to win it. "The best way to win any game, Japan tells me every other night, is never, never to think about the score," Iyer says. That job, after all, rightfully belongs the One Great Scorer.

More at NPR