For no particular reason, I find myself thinking about games today.
Not the kind of games I play now, of course. No, I mean the kind of games I used to play when I was young enough to actually
admit to playing games. Back when I was a kid, all games were basically the same in format. You and the other players sat round whatever instrument of psychological torture you'd chosen to submit yourselves to, and each of you in turn performed a simple, seemingly harmless action (poking fake swords into a fake barrel, placing items of cargo on a plastic mule, whatever). Play would continue in this fashion until, at some unpredictable moment, something sudden and catastrophic would happen. A brief moment of silence would ensue while each of the players confronted his or her mortality in their own personal way, and then play would continue with the disaster-stricken participant excluded.
At no point could anyone explain to the eliminated player why their identical performance of the simple, repetitive action had on this occasion resulted in their dismissal, nor how everyone else had earned their resultant sensation of superiority over them. It was essentially impossible to improve your skill at playing the game, or to otherwise increase your chances of averting the catastrophic outcome. Play simply continued until only one player remained as, for want of a better term, the "winner".
Here's what I learned from years of playing these cookie-cutter games in their many and various forms. Life is fraught with horrifyingly random catastrophes, there is no way to avert them or lessen their impact, and the best we can hope for is to be the last person left who hasn't lost so we can quit playing before we lose as well...
... and a very merry non-specific Winter festival to you all!
