Playing The Game

Sometimes it is like the world is waiting for something from you, as though it waits for you to make your move in some elaborate game it has concocted around you, without you really being made aware of the rules or the strategy of the game it is playing with you.

You feel it watching you as though it sits across the board, the table, from you patiently analysing every movement you make, every twitch of your face, for those subtle signs that betray what you are thinking.

But you don’t know what to think; don’t even know what would construe a move in this elaborate game you have been pressed into. All that you know is that as soon as you do something, the world, the universe, will hit back with some move of its own – often completely out of the blue – that leaves you sitting there dumbfounded at how the world, the universe, seems to know so well what will leave you unable to move, stalemated by its sheer audacity.

Sometimes though, there is some slip, some alteration in reality, which allows you to see what you think is one of the rules of, some structure to, this game the universe is playing with you.

So you make one move, two moves, perhaps even a whole series of moves that makes you feel that – at last – you are getting somewhere, that now you understand it all and how it is played. Only to find, a few moves into this streak, that it was some elaborate strategic blunder, and the universe knew it had you beat all along.