I was never very good at pinball.
As a kid I would try and play but for some reason I would always find a way to drain the ball right down the middle of the flippers. Much later in life I realized that you could actually bump the machine while playing giving me the ability to change physics thereby making the predictable unpredictable again.
The only problem with this behavior is that pinball manufacturers figured out that players would be doing this so they included tilt detectors into their design.
These pendulums hang inside the bracket and when the table and player get a little too rambunctious contact each other and “tilt” the game.
The trick was knowing how far one could push the game before the game pushed back.
I think life has a built in tilt meeter but most people never try to change the rules of the game to see how far they can go before a tilt. Tilting on a pinball machine results in a lost game but I don’t thing tilting in life results in any real loss. I am not talking about a deliberate tilt like breaking the law, or abandoning your vows, or walking away from life. I am talking about the fine line most tilts occur on. The line when the ball is going to drain away anyway and you are simply trying to not lose the game.
Those times when you have done everything right and pushed the flippers at the right time and created the best scenario you can to win and physics deals you a shot right down the middle. Those moments when no matter how you play by the rules the outcome results in loss. Those times when you realize the rules and the game itself is designed not for you to win only to lose.
Those are the moments when lifting a corner or nudging a side or bumping a table are worth the chance in that successfully pushing up to the tilt means you can play the game a little longer.
After all it’s our quater, our moment, our life and our turn at the game.
Speaking of game, why are we so certain the game we are playing is fair anyway?
Looking over the last couple months of my life I have come to realize one thing.
Nobody knows how to play the game.
Not Ministers, not Politicians, not friends, not anybody. Nobody knows the way the game will play out and yet we all play by preconceived rules that seem destined to result in failure.
We think the game is real so we strive for a dream no one can guarantee by working at jobs no one can secure and worry ourselves to sleep and wake. We run after shiny things and collide against bumpers that propel us at speeds we can’t control and just when we think we have caught our breath, we are flipped back up into the game. The clatter of the game deafens us. The blaze of the lights blinds us. The momentum and design of the game launches us and we colide and fly and zip and crash and fear the drain and do whatever we can to never know the darkness of slipping past the flippers.
We consider the tilt during times of despair but rely on determination to play the next round even more perfectly. This time we will avoid that bumper and this time we will not flip up into that rail and this time we will definitely not fall into that hole because all it does is add more balls to the game which makes it that much harder to win.
We convince ourselves that we must win by playing by rules that are unwilling to bend and in the middle of it a nagging question tends to rise.
If this is just a game – why am I not having any fun?
The question is impossible to ignore when traveling at blurring speeds and colliding against events that push back. The question becomes an accusation when our last quarter is spent and we face the reality that all we have worked for this round is about to go down the drain.
Is this really just a game?
I say it is.
Doesn’t life start out consummated in the throws of passion and desire birthed out of intimate love? Isn’t our arrival on scene anticipated and celebrated and filled with hope and wonder and celebration? Don’t we spend the beginning of life full of wonder and discovery of new sensations and experiences of love and anticipation and beauty? I know there are exceptions to this, but the majority of us knew this beginning. Those that didn’t know such a start still have a creator that spins wildly over them and sings a song of love in the night.
What am I trying to say in my meandering? What is this artist trying to convey through words gleefully interrupted by almost three year old hugs around my neck as I sit at home and type about pinball?
Play the game but remember it’s just a game and like most games the rules can be broken and the game changed mid course.
When all you can see is lose lose no matter what you do, stop and go for the tilt.
You can always play another ball and you can always start another game because the game is yours and we are always moving from less to more.
We are loved more than we can ever hope to grasp and even if we fail the game, we will never fail the life.
And finally, life is so much more than just trying not to tilt.