A game one of my sisters will play with me in my first year of

Hear the words of Ali Smith: “A game one of my sisters will play with me in my first year of being alive is called Good Baby, Bad Baby. This consists of being told I am a good baby until I smile and laugh, then being told I am a bad baby until I burst into tears. This training will stand me in good stead all through my life.” What seems at first like a childhood memory of mischief carries within it the weight of prophecy. For here we see the earliest lesson of the human condition: that the world measures us by its shifting judgments, that joy and sorrow are often summoned not by our own truth, but by the words of others. The smile and the tears, commanded at will, become symbols of how society shapes and tests us from the very beginning.

The ancients themselves understood this cruel and wondrous dynamic. In the courts of kings, a servant might be exalted one moment with praise, then crushed the next with scorn, depending not on his merit but on the whim of his master. Thus, men and women learned early to read the world’s shifting winds, to adapt, to survive. Smith’s memory of Good Baby, Bad Baby is but the first trial of this eternal game—the recognition that approval and disapproval are tools of power, and that one must learn to endure them both without losing oneself.

Consider the story of Diogenes, the philosopher who lived in a barrel. He was mocked, called mad, called a fool, yet also praised as wise, even saint-like, by others. Diogenes learned, as Ali Smith suggests, that the world’s judgment is fickle—that one moment it crowns you as good, and the next it damns you as bad. To live with dignity, then, is to recognize the game for what it is: a pattern of manipulation, and an opportunity to find strength not in others’ approval, but in one’s own truth.

The smile in this quote is more than a baby’s laugh—it is the human desire to please, to be affirmed, to feel safe in the warmth of praise. And the tears are more than a child’s sorrow—they are the pain of rejection, the sting of being deemed unworthy. These two responses shape much of human behavior. Entire societies rise and fall on this axis: governments manipulate with rewards and punishments, lovers sway each other with affection and coldness, children grow into adults conditioned to seek the world’s approval. Smith, with piercing clarity, names this truth as a kind of training—one that teaches us early how to live within systems of power.

Yet there is resilience in this recognition. To see the game clearly is to gain freedom from it. If a baby learns that smiles and tears can be drawn forth by others’ words, then the adult who remembers this lesson can choose to resist. One can learn to smile even when called bad, or to withhold tears when condemned. One can stand firm, knowing that judgment will always shift, and that no single voice should define your worth. This is the deeper wisdom hidden in Smith’s memory: to know the rules of the game is the first step in transcending them.

The lesson for us is profound. We must understand that the world will always try to play Good Baby, Bad Baby with us—praising us to win our compliance, condemning us to break our spirit. But if we remember the ancient truth, we can choose to stand apart from this cycle. We can learn to smile not because we are told to, but because joy is ours to give. We can endure condemnation without surrendering our selfhood. And in this way, what began as childhood mischief becomes the seed of wisdom that sustains a lifetime.

So let this wisdom endure: the world will name you good and then bad, it will summon your smiles and your tears at its whim. But you are more than its judgments, more than its games. Recognize the pattern, endure the training, and rise above it. For the truest strength is not to be the world’s puppet, but to be your own master—to smile when your heart chooses, to weep when your soul demands, and to live in the freedom of authenticity.