If you like words or trivia or intellectual nonsense, let’s talk games. Are you game?
The tune that played through my head while pondering this subject was Game of Love, the 1965 American version by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. However, upon further examining the lyrics, the only thing I found useful was “…Let’s play.”
I wonder what might make love, a game. Love doesn’t seem so much a thing that you play at, if playfulness is key to the game of love.
I guess if you’re one who perceives that “love is a battlefield,” with “no promises and no demands,” (Pat Benatar 1983), it might be that love is a war game. But is this love? Or, is it playing games?
With love, I believe that if it’s a game, it has to be a win-win or lose-lose. Love as a game certainly is not a game of chance. Come to think about it, the game of love might not be a spontaneous game but one of strategy. Premeditation and planning are required for the win-win goal of this game.
There is some skill involved in the game of love. Just ask anybody who has partnered with another for many years.
They’ve learned some things about juggling; about tolerance of differences; how to obey the sixth (kill) and ninth (lie) commandments – well all of them help out in long-term relationships; they’ve mastered the balance beam; how to be angry and sin not; they’ve learned their history lessons, household economy, and the temporariness but vitality of the five-year-plan.
I’m of the mind that love is a thing that grows out of challenges borne together over time, rather than a thing that culminates one time a year with dinner out, strawberries dipped in chocolate, champagne, and flowers.
Some people like to play games others don’t – what’s the difference? I question this both literally and figuratively. Some folks bow out of playing board games, card games, solving puzzles, video games, and electronic games. Are games too trivial for some, or childish?
I believe some people literally avoid games because their temperament is too competitive or maybe not competitive enough. We’ve all been there in a game of sport or even a board game, when folks who make a mistake get angry, seemingly way out of proportion to the spirit of a game.
I guess since I mentioned games of sport, I should surmise that “game animals,” the wild kind, hunted for their meat, are treasured in particular for the sport of the catch. Hunting is a game of sport.
I mean, people who act deceitful or manipulative in a relationship are said to be “playing games”. In this scenario there has to be a winner and a loser in the game.
Long-term relationships might be compared to the Olympic Games where only the most dedicated athletes make it to the podium. Or some might compare their love relationships to the Invictus Games where although wounded, they can still win amongst their peers.
Card games involve both skill and luck. For example, you have to work with the hand you’ve been dealt. Some folks have the ability to win the game in spite of a few “bad” hands dealt to them.
What does one get out of watching a game show on television? Do such folks consider it a personal game of skill to have picked the winner, thus considering themselves winners?
War games, I suppose are the epitome of games of strategy. “Game theory” is a branch of mathematics that postulates a scenario. The scenario is played out and analyzed against other possibilities and outcomes. Then another scenario is put onto the table. I think that theory, analysis, and strategies, of war games would be potentially fun for certain minds.
Since you were so very gracious to follow me down the rabbit-hole of my thoughts about the concept of games, what do you say we go forward as “game changers?” Maybe we could completely change some upcoming situations with new ideas or decisive plays that will make somebody’s world develop better than expected.