The Game of Life

Who remembers "The Game of Life?" I do, in fact, I found a picture of it. I love games, any kind. To this day I'm undefeated at "Monopoly." I like board games, computer games, baseball games, football games, verbal games, etc.

I was thinking today that life itself is a game. On some occasions, if we make the right moves, we win a prize. Sometimes we don't know what to do so we just "roll the dice," and go from there. Other times we lose. Sometimes there's a penalty, sometimes we're playing by ourselves a game like "Yahtzee," and nobody except ourselves is going to know how we did. But we'll know. Sure, it isn't something I'm going to keep track of and announce 3 months from now something like, "Hey, 3 months ago I scored 270 on Yahtzee!" See, I played that two nights ago and remember my score. Not that it was great or anything. But I accomplished something, I got "Yahtzee" on that round. Sometimes I don't get it at all.

That's one of the points here. It may be a game of entertainment, it may be a sports event that we go to, or a game that we participate in. No matter what it is, we accomplish something. We learn from our mistakes, our defeats. Like playing chess, which is something I can do, you play against an opponent and remember strategies that he uses or that you use with success. It's an accomplishment no matter if you win or lose.

There was a movie, "War Games," with Matthew Broderick. It's about a NORAD computer that has the General Staff thinking the USA is about to be nuked. In the end Broderick has to teach the computer that sometimes if you win, you lose. Or that sometimes there is no winner. There's a General in there that says the priceless line that people remember that movie for, "Ah'd piss on a spark plug if it would do any good."

Well, sometimes so would I. I even know what a spark plug is (not bad for someone who isn't mechanically inclined.) And no, it wouldn't do any good, not in any instance I can think of.

The final point here is that we can look at life as a game. We can choose to play and try to win, we can lose the round we're playing and put it back on the shelf, and we can try another game and see how we do. If we don't look at life as a game, then we take life seriously. Nothing wrong with that but we can take it too far. And when we lose, life is over.

So I'm choosing to look at it like a game, and I try and consider my strategy before I make a move. I'm not always going to win, but I can try to do my best. That's all we can do - try our best. And sometimes there is no winner, it's a stalemate. But I'm having fun finding new games, learning the rules and finding people to play with. And the people are what makes it interesting!

Right now I have to go and send some monsters into someone's backyard. It relaxes me, just like reading. And tomorrow I have to play the game of life again. Let's hope I win a round!