Losing is Winning: Perspective

By Jonathan Lam on 07/17/17

Tagged: essay brain-dump

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My family and I were playing a game of bridge (a Chinese version, diuzhuo) a few nights ago. It was a little late, my mind was already a little burned-out, and I was far more interested in trying to solve my Rubik's cube one-handed than in the game.

Recently, our bedtime has been around 9:00 (we're well-behaved children, believe it or not!). But when our cousins come over and our parents play against their beloved siblings and laugh and yell and cuss in broken English, their games can go well into the wee hours of the morning. Ours was not very unlike those lengthy games.

We started very upbeat. Neither of us could get far above the other. Almost every advance in one rank was ended by a turnover and a similar advance by the opposite team. But this kept happening, and the game dropped to a monotone.

… 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 4, 6, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10, 9 …

I eventually required sustenance as it crept past 11:00. We set deadlines for midnight, then 12:30.

Eventually my mom said that we would quit when she and my sister won (we were a little ahead at the time). Surprisingly, it took another few rounds before they caught up and eventually beat us. In the meantime, we tried to lose, but we had some uncanny luck that caused my mom to cheer when we won a round.

My dad called it rudeness but it was just drowsiness. I just Rubik's cubed faster and paid less attention to the game and tried to lose so bedtime would come quicker. As luck would have it, our sleepy brains ended up winning a few rounds in a row.

Eventually we lost, but then we played some more (against my wishes). We stopped a little later when it was around 1:00.

(Then I timed myself Rubik's cubing and got an 18 second solve on my second timed solve. Maybe I was't as tired as I had thought.)

This weekend we watched an Adam Sandler movie, The Longest Yard. The main character loses his NFL career and then almost completely loses his friends' trust and his pride when he "shaves points." But if you set up a deal to win money in exchange for losing the game, when can you win? I don't suppose you can ever truly win when there's also a loss involved. When can compromise ever give full benefits or total satisfaction?

Postscript: I'm a little slaphappy right now so this sloppy brain-dump of a post may sound waffly. Just didn't want to miss too many days in a row without posting to this blog. Off to bed now.