“You see, man, Tetris, the game you know, it’s a lot like life. Yea, I play tetris all the time almost every day, in between things at work, in the evening when the TV is on. It keeps the thoughts at bay, you see, and I couldn’t help but develop some sorta philosophy around it...
How’s it like life? well, that’s easy. Life just keeps going on and things keep coming at you. Except we, people that is, tend to think of time horizontally, east to the west type of deal, maybe because of timelines in elementary school when we were doing our learning or something like that, but we never think of time as going from up to down, north to south, when in fact that might make a little bit more sense, because when things go south they go down, and I mean all the way down, and that’s a matter of time after all, you know? And I mean time and gravity are inherently linked in a way aren’t they, as the two forces that run the whole show. So we never flip time from down to up, and I think that’s funny because it makes more sense than right to left, right?
Anyway I digress. But not really. Because Tetris, like life, again, is in fact run by gravity, no? Falling shapes. But right, back on track. Both in life and in Tetris, things keep coming down on you. And there’s no way to prevent them, no matter how hard you try things keep coming down. And it’s our job to figure out how we adjust those things. Like let’s say your car breaks down or something. That’s a matter of time, no doubt about it. That’s like one of those tetris shaps falling from the heavens. It’s happening, no matter what, you have to deal with it. So it’s a matter of adjusting your own mind how to deal with it, how to fit it in with everything else that has happened. It’s coming, oh it’s coming, but you can adjust it somehow, and eventually it falls in place with the rest of the shit in your life. And maybe eventually, that will clear a whole row of something, and make you feel like you are making progress right?
But that’s the tough part of Tetris. life. both. The whole deal really. It keeps coming, and just keeps coming downwards. And faster and faster. And no matter how many adjustments you make, no matter how many rows you clear, no matter how well you have dealt with all before, time just keeps crashing down. The down fall is inevitable, unless you stop playing that is.
And maybe you made a mistake, maybe you put a shape in the wrong way, or missed clearing a row. Maybe you will get lucky and sort that out, who knows. But the more it piles up the more you have to manage and the harder it becomes. And that’s the thing with tetris and life, is that the longer you go the faster and more rapid the whole thing becomes. The more overwhelming. And even if you did a great job, no, even if you did a perfect job up to this point, the slip ups happen and it doesn’t slow down. And eventually, it will become too much, the shapes will pile up too quickly nd without remorse, and it will become overwhelming and chaotically spiral. You know in Tetris, and life, it’s easy in the beginning because you have more room to navigate, slower pacing with more time to adjust. It takes longer for gravity to do its job in th ebeginning. But when things have piled up then there’s less space to figure things out, less time to see what is coming your way. No brain is quick enough to adjust at that pace, mark my words.
And then the tumble comes. You’re doing fine, but then 3 or 4 mismatched pieces and it’s all out of hand. There’s nothing you can do, time just kept beating on. You stack, it hits the ceiling. Boop. Gameover buckaroo. Done-zo. You can’t stop gravity and you can’t stop time, the two will conspire to get you.
But that’s the good thing about tetris, and life, is that when it’s over, and I mean when it’s all over, you can start again. Try to get a new high score. Cleared the board and all that jazz. That’s what I believe, spiritually you know. Anyway, what do say? The next drinks on me.”
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