Win

Spider

“Spider Solitaire” is an exercise in idle concentration that I may play on my iPad when I can fool myself that I have nothing else to do. Truth, I always have else to do, something better, more worthwhile and more important. But it’s my game, as others may play other computer games or work crossword puzzles. Or read the seed catalog. When I bought my mother her first computer nearly twenty years ago she got immediately into the games, discovered “Spider” and told me about it as more challenging than regular Solitaire, which she had taught me to play with cards one time when I was a child sick and bored.

As it turns out, Solitaire is pretty much life’s game anyway. If I discount the Deity, which may not be a good idea, we are pretty much in this alone, making choices. Like Robert Frost contemplating “The Road Not Taken.” Frost wonders how life would have been if he had taken that other road; but not wandering off into sentimentality, recognizing that he will never come back and try that other road, he concludes that they probably were pretty much the same. If I want to make something of Spider Solitaire besides an excuse to delay paying bills or writing a sermon (I’m not preaching today), philosophically, it’s a lesson in making choices. It’s not quite as real as life, because I have my game set so that if I don’t like where I am ten moves downstream, I can back up and choose differently for a different outcome. I win, I almost always win. Would I like that for real? Probably not. Frost chose the road less traveled by, and says that has made all the difference. Certainly, for me, each choice has made all the difference. But it's not Spider Solitaire.

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