Bet on the Racing Light

Morning Thoughts #83

Mostly, life is just a game. And, for the most part, I know it. The problem is: I have always taken games too seriously. An umpire of balls and strikes is not the judge of life. But it can sure seem like it in the moment sometimes! Reflective moments and unreflective reactions: are they always to be oil and water? Time and again, I remain the maker of resolutions aspiring towards truly crossover moments—ones expressing an inborn nature entirely cleared of its weeds and teeming with more intentional crops.

But maybe there’s more truth to our first reactions than we are able to realize upon reflection. When life is just a game, there are two choices: Either life is not as important as we realize, or games are much, much more so. The older I get, the more I think the former but act out the latter.

Let us have it both ways. Life is just a game to be played, and in each moment, the contest can feel like it means everything for the very reason that there is little else. If you throw your only match, no gambler is waiting in the wings to pay you off. Who knows, the universe might just be God’s Circus Maximus—a stadium of matter—and we’ve borne our way into having a ticket to watch and bet on the racing light.