If you haven't ever played, this may not be of interest to you, but like most games, opponents play to win. Losing isn't fun, but worse than losing, being trounced causes some irritability. What I noticed about myself when I resumed playing, was a bit of backgammon blood lust ... when rolling the dice, my hope was to get the perfect number to kill my opponent if one or more of their playing pieces were unprotected: but killing isn't the object of the game, getting all of the little men home safe, and then removing them from the board before the opponent does, makes one person a victor and one person a loser. In the online game I have been playing, opponents can chat using the limited options available: Hello!; Hurry Up!; Sorry; Well Played, Ha Ha; Thank-You ...
What has me returning to the game again and again, is my fascination with my own reactions to my opponents. My lose/win rate is forty-seven to fifty-three, meaning I lose 53 percent of the time: and sometimes I lose my cool ... perhaps in the same ratio .. Ha Ha ...
Here is a brief list of my reactions:
Humour, irritation, delight, amazement, incensed, playful and polite
While I feel and observe my reactions, it is rarely about the roll of the dice, it is generally about the feel of the opponent. Do you believe you can sense and feel what someone is like without eye contact, without reading facial expressions, without hearing another's voice? I do ...
There are players that have amassed large pretend fortunes in the online backgammon world. I have to rely on free coins to accumulate to get in on the game, or purchase some, which I refuse to do, since Hello!, buying into a fake reality makes me a fraud (yes yes, you can extrapolate as much as you like as I hint at humanities inclinations to fakery and feigning, pretending what isn't, really is?!).
As I study myself, I am studying the people I briefly encounter as opponents. One fella absolutely refused to be safe, got himself killed repeated, placing himself continuously in my camp, ruthlessly killing my men along the way, and to my amazement, he won. It was a fascination, I tell you, and I could see him in my minds eye, determined, at all costs, risking life and limb, to get to where he wanted to be. Another player refused to kill my men, despite many opportunities ... I felt a sense of peace about him or her, a kindness, a desire to engage without causing injury or harm: I won the game, but just barely. The soft feeling afterward had lightly and gently touched my heart. Other players cruise across the board as though no one else is present ... the dice roll in their favour, they select the perfect landing places, and one might get the impression the game is fixed, that the dice like the opponent more somehow, and that there was a predetermination of who would be the winner, and who would feel as though they simply did not have a chance. Lastly, at least for this piece of writing, there are the obnoxious players that for some reason agree to a match but use an exorbitant amount of time to make their moves and when they do kill or trap the opponents men, they gleefully send the message, Ha Ha ... this is when the immature side of me comes out, I start killing even when it doesn't make sense, since the object of the game is to win, and then, when the tables turn, I send the Ha Ha, Hurry Up messages too.
Sigh ... humans are interesting, aren't they, dear reader?
Today I decided to be a pacifist, recalling how it felt to be safe when playing that one game with the kind opponent that refused to kill. I wanted to see what my win loss record would be. I played six games, managing to kill once, only because I didn't have a choice, and had to get back onto the board: my win/loss ration improved, to 50/50. Since I was being clinical about the experience, I had absolutely no feelings at all, except a strange sense of detachment and slight superiority, feeling a little clever that I had stepped out of the game, was logical and pragmatic, and prepared to win, or lose, without any attachment to the outcome.
But dear reader, I was still, and always am, playing to win. I don't like losing, I like the satisfaction of getting to the finish line first, but I have to say, I prefer a photo finish, especially when I am playing someone that I sense is kind, someone that says Thank You and Sorry, or Well Played and Hello, during our brief board time together. In fact, when someone that is decent wins, I feel some joy on their behalf ...
But again, dear reader, when the vicious, the mean spirited, the kill at all costs players present themselves, my hackles activate and my determination to win increases ... and this is usually, when I lose my cool, Ha Ha!
Let us round out this metaphorical convo with some sound scripture:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12)
I will end with complete transparency. We are emotional beings and can sense and feel one another, including intentions. We can override our knowing, pretend wickedness does not exist and that our senses are off base, silly or nonsensical, but they aren't dear one, they aren't. Good and evil exist, we live in a wicked world, and we can choose to be aggressors, pacifists, and without exhausting the list, we can choose to be somewhere in-between.
Checking our own intentions before engaging with others is what I am driving at. We leave an imprint on each other, a soft soul brushing or finger print indents ... soothing or savage ...
Which, dear reader are you?
Soothing or savage?
God wants none to be lost, each soul belongs to Him, and our ministry is one of reconciliation. We are to run the race to win, knowing we gave our all as God's Salvation Army, here on earth: to do this well, we must at all costs, do no harm as we speak Truth in Love.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)
Salvation is God's salve for the soul, soothing the savage in us. If you don't know this yet, perhaps today is the day, dear one, that you go down on your knees and have a heart to heart with your Creator 💖, the God of the Bible.
I pray you are reconciled today
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