Find Your Tetris

Tetris.  Simple.  Seven shapes that fit together – and given enough time to plan things out, achieving four-line Nirvana is so, so doable.  The game doesn’t get harder; it just gets faster.  New varieties have come out, available in the App Store – but c’mon.  The OG Tetris – never gonna be overtaken by its offspring.  Quite a seller, too.  More than half a BILLION have paid to play.  I know I have.  Maybe you, too? 

The game is the same every time you play.  It’s not like Blackjack, where the house gives you 20 and you get excited.  Only to have the dealer pull a 7-card 21 to beat you.  Even Rock, Paper, Scissors delivers unexpected, unpredictable defeats.  Tetris works because you know the challenge, you see it coming.  You are ready for it.  Sharp edges of shapes that fit perfectly together, when done correctly, can leave you feeling a brief sense of accomplishment. 

This stuff really happens.

It's a middle-aged game.  Played now by more than one generation, because it came out in 1984.  So, right around the end of the Atari era and at the dawn of Nintendo – most parents bugged out about how much time their kids spent playing these games.  Fortunately for our kids, marketing has changed, and video games are now considered therapeutic, especially Tetris.   Maybe that’s ridiculous, maybe it’s true. 

Sorry if this makes you feel old.

My take on it is that when kids are playing video games, they aren’t elsewhere.  Not outside playing – which sucks.  Not in the streets – doesn’t suck.  But why do people like Tetris so much?  My theory is that it has to do with putting things in order.  And for whatever time a person is playing, they are in control of what happens.  Seriously, how often in our lives are we presented with chaos that can be controlled and organized? In the game, what happens when you successfully make lines?  They disappear. 

Poof. Just like that. The clutter vanishes, the mess gets cleaned up, and you get to start fresh — again and again. That’s the magic – that’s why millions upon millions can’t stop playing.  It scratches the itch we can never reach.  There’s a quick flash, then a clean board – but look out, the next piece is on its way.  Players can make progress without pressure, productivity without noise.  They get a little satisfaction in a world where most of us burn the midnight oil just to break even.  It provides moments of calm, and what’s wrong with that?

Then…there is the way life actually works.  Not like Tetris.  From the little – you call Comcast because they billed you twice.  Easily fixable, but you wait on hold for 19 minutes.  To the big – constantly choosing between work and family. Or the worst, a diagnosis for the far too young.  The worst word in the English language isn’t the F word.  It’s actually the M word – malignant.  Then to make it as bad as it can possibly be, the R word…Rare. 

If Tetris gets you chill – play it.  But don’t count out the value of human connections.  Because out here in real life, there’s no reset button. No perfectly shaped blocks. No satisfying disappearance of the lines when the pieces finally click. Out here, we live in a world where chaos stacks fast — grief, guilt, regret, addiction — and unlike Tetris, we can’t spin our way out of it in time.

Yet, just like in the game, the longer you stay present, the better you get at anticipating what’s coming next. That’s what sobriety has given me. Not perfection. Not peace on demand. But a shot at order. A clear mind to make decisions with purpose. A little more focus. A little more energy, placed in the right direction. And the more days I stack like that? The more lines I quietly clear — the ones no one else sees, but I do. My son does. 

Tonight, when I got home from work, my son and I talked for nearly an hour about the best baseball players ever, at each position.  He said Aaron Judge is the greatest center fielder ever.  Then I told him about Willie Mays.  But Dad, Judge played right field too.  So he’s the best right fielder ever.  Sorry buddy.  Babe Ruth.  And before you get any ideas, Ted Williams played in Left.  I can’t get it through his skull that Michael Jordan was better than LeBron James – but the baseball stuff, he got it.

“Oh. That’s Willie Mays.” That is what he said when I reminded him of this picture.

When he went up to bed, I started typing this.  I was trying to put into words how I felt about our time together tonight.  It was simple.  It was easy.  It was fun.  He learned, and I kinda taught.  He agreed that longevity is important – so there is no way of knowing yet if Aaron Judge will reach the echelon of Mickey Mantle.    Shohei Othani  - pretty good, we both agreed.  Okay, I’ll be honest.  The guy is redic.

If your Tetris is a walk at the end of the day, be sure to take it.  If it’s hitting the gym, go.  If you see a recipe on Pintrest you want to try – get the ingredients and try it.  A mountain bike on a sick fast trail – let me know, because I’ll go with you.  Climb the mountain when it’s nice out, bring your kids, or a friend – or all of them.  Take pictures.  It’s beautiful up there. 

Find your Tetris. 

If today were my Tetris, my conversation with my son about baseball would be my line. 

Because that’s what this new life is teaching me — the lines that matter most aren’t the ones anyone else sees or scores. They’re the quiet ones: the walk, the talk, the time. And every time I show up for one of them, I clear a little more of the mess. Not all of it. But enough to see what’s next. Enough to keep me going – just like in the game.