A few recent days at the beach included the familiar problem of what to do when it rains, or during the midday melanoma hours when only mad dogs and Englishman would venture out. And the familiar answer was to stay indoors and play games.
Several hours of Hearts reminded me of how annoying a game can be. You believe you’ve got either a shoot-the-moon kind of hand or a safe, tame, innocuous hand where no danger lurks. But you are never really on solid ground. Someone can pass you cards that doom the enterprise or, inches away from victory, drop the venomous Queen of Spades from the sky and plummet you from first to last place.
The more I thought about games, the more obvious it became that random ruin isn’t a bug but a feature. The name of Chutes and Ladders speaks for itself. Climb all you like, the garbage chute is just around the corner. Monopoly has a card called Chance, which is no accident, as well as a place to land that sends you to jail without having committed any crime, other than a roll of the dice. Indeed, any game that relies on dice or a spin of a wheel makes a mockery of self-determination.
What lesson are these games teaching chldren? The Biblical: Time and chance happeneth to them all? A rather Zen reminder of the futility of striving since all life is suffering? You’d think growing up with constant reminders of how contingent, unpredictable, random and arbitrary life is would turn us all into passive fatalists, grim stoics, or hunkered down survivalists expecting the worst.
But no. It is a testament either to our species’ lack of foresight or its sheer bloodymindedness that we love games. Yes, we are plunged into despond when dumped down an unexpected chute, but exult when we send someone else all the way back to the beginning in Parcheesi. Even when we lose horribly, we come back for more. In part because doing onto others what has just been done to you is exhilarating, but largely because we foolishly believe next time we will triumph.
We are told this is the mindset that makes world champions, but it also creates buyers of lottery tickets and bankrupts gambling addicts. The trick may be to avoid taking games too seriously and to be wary of viewing all of life as one big game.
Trump ran on the premise that the game of America is rigged, and the promise that he’d re-rig it in favor of his voters, but grown-ups don’t want life to work that way. They want an even playing field and refs who enforce the rules. They want a quality from life in which kids’ games are strangely lacking — justice.
When we say, let the best man win, we don’t mean the best at rigging the game but at playing it — fairly, skillfully, beautifully. Often the greatest heroes are the ones who find a way to win even when the deck seems to be stacked against them, the odds not in their favor. We don’t adore them for their luck but for their ability, their grit, their character.
When I wasn’t risking skin cancer or playing the heart-breaking game of Hearts at the beach, I was watching with awe and admiration greatness in action, what Hemingway called grace under pressure — the American women winning the World Cup against the odds.
They come, after all from a country, unlike those of their competitiors, that isn’t gaga about their game and doesn’t give it the same level of support. Despite winning four Olympic gold medals and four World Cups, to zero for the men, they are paid less, get fewer endorsement deals amd are otherwise treated shabbily.
When condescendingly asked whether they could really play world class soccer while at the same time fighting a discrimination lawsuit demanding economic justice from the men in suits who run American soccer, one of these proud, outspoken, profesionals said, “Women can multitask? Imagine that…”
Even after beating Thailand, Chile, Sweden, Spain, France, and England by 24 to 3 goals — there were still doubters. In part due to the perennial handicap of all women, being underestimated. But in part becaause they went into the final with a worrying disadvantage — two of their stars were playing wth dicey hamstrings.
It didn’t matter. They endured some questionable calls, saw one star leave the field with a possible concussion, another given a bloody head wound. None of it mattered. They were unstoppable. Final score: two goals to nil. One was by the oldest player ever to win the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball, Megan Rapinoe with 6 total goals for the tournament. She turned 34 days before the final. The other goal was by Rose Lavelle, at 24 one of the younger players on the team.
In this game, the dice were loaded in favor of character, courage, stamina, and teamwork. As they held their trophies high and their heads higher, the huge crowd of Americans who had traveled to France to see the women beat all comers didn’t just chant “U-S-A,” they chanted “Equal Pay!” With good reason. The prize money for the Women’s World Cup is $30 million. For the men’s, $400 millon. Yet it is estimated one billion people worldwide tuned in to watch the women play. Maybe the game of life won’t be rigged against women forever.