Life is a Game
“Life is a game, all you have to do is to know how to play it.” I thought about this quotation, by an unknown author while driving to Golden Gate Park with Leo, an eleven years young boy, and his mom. During our short acquaintance I found out that he is a straight A student, plays the drum, likes sports, has a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, plays hockey and basketball and wants to be an architect, when he grows up. I was really looking forward to spending time with him. His mother expressed concern that Leo was spending too much time playing basketball on his cell phone. I had no idea what she was talking about until they arrived. Knowing his interest in basketball, I showed him photos of the basketball game I was invited to two years ago. When I opened my computer and showed him the images, he got excited. Leo knew about this particular game, recognized the players and shared a lot of trivia information, and about basketball in general. After lunch, Leo asked to use my computer to play a new game on the internet. This kept him busy for awhile. Any attempts to interrupt his game and to talk about anything else didn’t work.
It was a very pleasant afternoon and we decided to drive to Golden Gate Park to take a walk around the Stow Lake. This is a very beautiful area any time of the year, and Elfa and I often come here. Leo constantly held his cell phone with yet another basketball game and was not interested about the lake, since, he said, “it is dirty”. Jokingly, I told him that the fish are playing basketball there. “No, they are not”, he replied, since “there are no scores”. “Is playing the game not enough?” I asked. “No, he responded, you need to score”.
When we arrived at the lake, he wanted to stay in the car to keep playing. His mom encouraged him to get out because outside he can play yet another game – Pokemon on his cell phone. As we walked, It was showing every trail in the virtual reality and a person moving along. From time to time, he encounted spots which added to the scoring system. I pointed out a poodle on the road to him, and asked where it is on his phone. “It was not there when the game was designed”, he replied. How about those trees with the cluster of pine cones? The view of Downtown and the Golden Gate? How about the owl’s cooing at the top of the tree?” The game was not reflecting real life, regardless of how exact the GPS was showing the details on his cell phone. When we were back in the car, I mentioned that I am planning to write a story about life as a game, and Leo’s mother responded that it is not a game, since any game needs rules and there are no rules in real life. I think that there are rules, and we just need to learn them. After all, it was Mother Theresa who said, “Life’s a game, play it.”
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P.S. The basketball game I attended on March 11, 2015 was between the San Francisco Patriots and the Detroit Pistons. I was invited to the VIP section by Chase Bank and was allowed to bring in a small camera though the security guard did not realize that it had a very long zoom lens. You can see four images from that experience. I made prints from three of them, and framed them as a present for Leo’s birthday. I am sure he will grow up as a very accomplished human being (perhaps an inventor of yet another game), and together with other kids from his generation, might even create new rules for the game we call life.
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Cheers,
