Or consider this literary description:
I really suspect there is some level of our minds that we might eventually access, where we could compare notes with people very unlike ourselves, as different as a political consultant and a paleolithic hunter-gatherer, or actor or social worker or car salesman, and see that we're all playing the same game.
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) It sounds a bit like what I'm after: a set of "moves of the game" which people generally don't know. Many people discover amazingly powerful things like NVC, through practice and intuition and if NVC is teachable, that is much more encouraging than the mere existence of "gifted" people who can talk someone down off a ledge or get a kindnapper to release hostages. But one thing that gives ideas more power is when they have a foundation, and everyone who looks into it with energy and good faith will see that it has a foundation.
The developer of another set of crisis management tools,
Brené Brown, was driven (unwillingly at first) in the direction of her
life work by masses of psychological data showing that vulnerability is
what makes for happiness.
I am always looking for something new that could contribute to a better world.