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Perhaps a distinction should be made between competition and challenge. Competition demands that someone lose. Beating someone is the objective.
Reigning supreme over everone else.
You win, they lose.
You're the best.
Challenge only has the objective of reaching a goal. Seeing how fast you can run, how high you can climb, how well you can perform.
Making someone else lose hasn't appealed to me for a long time. (Well, unless they're a real jerk.)
If you see the game as challenge, beating some score has absolutely nothing to do with winning or losing. You're just trying to achieve a goal.
That distinction might be elusive, but there's a huge difference in mind set.
I first played this game looking over my wife's shoulder and casually supplying her words. That frustrated her because she couldn't concentrate and listen to me.
So, I started playing by myself. Initially, it never occured to me to use any of the esoteric scientific and medical terms I knew. For some reason, it seemed the game was about literary words, things you might stretch to see in Look Homeward Angel.
I view this game as mental exercise, no differnt than riding a bike or lifting weights or doing yoga. Exercise helps you live longer with a better quality of life.
The body doesn't care if you're using a $20,000 machine or bags of sand. Exercise is exercise to the body. It's just that planned exercise based on knowledge will produce better and faster results.
Same with the mind.
I just got off the bike. I push the pace to the point that I feel on the verge of death. And then relax through it. Getting off the bike without giving up is exhilarating. No one else is around. No one else has won or lost. There's just the challenge of testing one's limits and succeeding. The transcendence of the challenge.
It's not an approach I would advocate for anyone else. Most people meet all their exercise needs with a couple of long pleasant walks each week. That's all they need to extend their lives and feel better.
Similar to playing this game. There's an entire spectrum of approach. Some people just want a relaxing challenge that produces no stress. It's all the mental exercise they want or need. They just want to have a bit of fun, enjoy themselves.
And what's life withou enjoyment.
For me, there was more than the simple exercise or satisfaction of playing. I was curious about efficiencies of mental production. Just how does the mind work to achieve this result? What are the efficiencies? Where are the inefficiencies? What's involved and how does it work? How do all the parts come together?
For me, the game itself is completely irrelevant. Even meeting the challenges of the game are relatively irrelevant. It's the mental exercise and then transcendig the game.
There are times when riding the bike at your limit brings a transcendence of pain and effort. All movement loses resistance. You're in harmony. No longer working against yourself. It becomes a ballet of movement. A nearly undescribale joy.
Same can happen playing this game. I put on music, push my mind to its limits and reach moments of transcendence. When every part (even the uncooperative fingers) is in harmony.
Though, mostly I just bumble and fumble. And make mistakes.
The game itself means nothing other than an opportunity to exercise. And transcend. It has nothing to do with beating anyone or being better than them.
The memorizing lists of meaningless words is nothing more than doing repetitive bicep curls. There's a pattern that produces a result. You learn the pattern, perform the placements and achieve an intended result. It's like 7 x 15=105, without bothering to ask fifteen what? A pure abstraction that doesn't require meaning.
Repetitive exercise is anathema to a good number of people. Learning useless words must be just as revolting.
One of these days I'll just move on to some other interest. I've got several portraits I need to do. It's not unlikely that I'll get back into art full time and have no more time for this.
Though, there's stil so much I haven't figured out here.
But whatever I do will be a study in how to understand and meet the challenges, how to arrive at productive efficiencies. How to transcend the process itself.
And will have absolutely nothing to do with being better than anyone else.
Reigning supreme over everone else.
You win, they lose.
You're the best.
Challenge only has the objective of reaching a goal. Seeing how fast you can run, how high you can climb, how well you can perform.
Making someone else lose hasn't appealed to me for a long time. (Well, unless they're a real jerk.)
If you see the game as challenge, beating some score has absolutely nothing to do with winning or losing. You're just trying to achieve a goal.
That distinction might be elusive, but there's a huge difference in mind set.
I first played this game looking over my wife's shoulder and casually supplying her words. That frustrated her because she couldn't concentrate and listen to me.
So, I started playing by myself. Initially, it never occured to me to use any of the esoteric scientific and medical terms I knew. For some reason, it seemed the game was about literary words, things you might stretch to see in Look Homeward Angel.
I view this game as mental exercise, no differnt than riding a bike or lifting weights or doing yoga. Exercise helps you live longer with a better quality of life.
The body doesn't care if you're using a $20,000 machine or bags of sand. Exercise is exercise to the body. It's just that planned exercise based on knowledge will produce better and faster results.
Same with the mind.
I just got off the bike. I push the pace to the point that I feel on the verge of death. And then relax through it. Getting off the bike without giving up is exhilarating. No one else is around. No one else has won or lost. There's just the challenge of testing one's limits and succeeding. The transcendence of the challenge.
It's not an approach I would advocate for anyone else. Most people meet all their exercise needs with a couple of long pleasant walks each week. That's all they need to extend their lives and feel better.
Similar to playing this game. There's an entire spectrum of approach. Some people just want a relaxing challenge that produces no stress. It's all the mental exercise they want or need. They just want to have a bit of fun, enjoy themselves.
And what's life withou enjoyment.
For me, there was more than the simple exercise or satisfaction of playing. I was curious about efficiencies of mental production. Just how does the mind work to achieve this result? What are the efficiencies? Where are the inefficiencies? What's involved and how does it work? How do all the parts come together?
For me, the game itself is completely irrelevant. Even meeting the challenges of the game are relatively irrelevant. It's the mental exercise and then transcendig the game.
There are times when riding the bike at your limit brings a transcendence of pain and effort. All movement loses resistance. You're in harmony. No longer working against yourself. It becomes a ballet of movement. A nearly undescribale joy.
Same can happen playing this game. I put on music, push my mind to its limits and reach moments of transcendence. When every part (even the uncooperative fingers) is in harmony.
Though, mostly I just bumble and fumble. And make mistakes.
The game itself means nothing other than an opportunity to exercise. And transcend. It has nothing to do with beating anyone or being better than them.
The memorizing lists of meaningless words is nothing more than doing repetitive bicep curls. There's a pattern that produces a result. You learn the pattern, perform the placements and achieve an intended result. It's like 7 x 15=105, without bothering to ask fifteen what? A pure abstraction that doesn't require meaning.
Repetitive exercise is anathema to a good number of people. Learning useless words must be just as revolting.
One of these days I'll just move on to some other interest. I've got several portraits I need to do. It's not unlikely that I'll get back into art full time and have no more time for this.
Though, there's stil so much I haven't figured out here.
But whatever I do will be a study in how to understand and meet the challenges, how to arrive at productive efficiencies. How to transcend the process itself.
And will have absolutely nothing to do with being better than anyone else.
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