On Winning, Grokking and other things

I recently went in search of a quote about having to play the game in order to win. I think I may have been thinking (at least in part) of this quote by Robert Heinlein (click on his name for more information on Heinlein):

"Of course the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you--if you don't play, you can't win."

In learning more about Heinlein, I found that he coined the term "grok" which has apparently become part of the Oxford English Dictionary. To grok (pronounced /ˈɡrɒk/) is to share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. Heinlein coined the term in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. In Heinlein's view of quantum theory, grokking is the intermingling of intelligence that necessarily affects both the observer and the observed.

From the novel:
“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man."

I always feel compelled to get inside the dog's heads when I am training them and to strive to optimize the teamwork aspect of competing with them. I am certain if I could only "grok" the dogs, we would be unstoppable at whatever we wanted to do. I'll sure keep trying - after all, "if you don't play, you can't win."