Several years ago, I was going through one of those heartbreaks that leave you floundering about in a wounded stupor like a harpooned narwhal. When these things happen, I always find myself gravitating towards a tried and true source of comfort: Buddhism podcasts (transcending worldly desires: in! Moping while listening to Sinead O’Connor: out!).
My favorite of the lot is Secular Buddhism hosted by Noah Rasheta, who introduced me to this certified banger of a metaphor and/or life philosophy:
We play life like it’s a game of chess, but it’s actually a game of Tetris. Life is Tetris.
When we navigate our life like a game of chess, we think that with the right strategy and enough planning, we can capture en passant or promote a pawn — I don’t know, I don’t play very much chess. Point is, if we plan ten steps ahead, we can win.
While a skilled player can tuck a few moves up their sleeve and reasonably predict what their opponent might do, life doesn’t have the parameters of a chessboard. On an individual level, no amount of planning could predict the impact of a pandemic, or a drunk driver, or jury duty.
That’s why life is like Tetris!
Tetris has some strategy involved and yes, you can plan ahead to an extent, but the mechanics of the game are pretty rudimentary: you arrange falling blocks (also called tetrominos or tetrads) of varying shapes in the most efficient way possible for as long as possible. A good Tetris player plans ahead to a certain extent, but their primary role is mitigation. A good Tetris player does not bemoan an inconveniently-shaped tetrad.
DISCLAIMER TANGENT!
I’ll admit, along with some modern Buddhist language, this comes off mildly invalidating. The stakes of excelling in Tetris are rarely life or death, and as humans, we should be allowed and expected to have emotional and irrational reactions to jarring life events.
And yet, the rate at which I clung to this new mental framework was alarming.
I turned it into my favorite kind of ineffective defense mechanism: heady, intellectual, and unemotional. I wanted to become the ultimate mitigator, a champion at life and/or Tetris. If I can’t control what happens in life, who dies or leaves or t-bones my car, at least I can avoid the hurt that comes with it. They are just data points and this is just life. A good Tetris player does not bemoan an inconveniently-shaped shape.
This is 1) untrue 2) a little silly in a sad way and 3) not a good-faith interpretation. It was the rumination of a girl who didn’t like herself, trying to hot wire her brain into never being sad again.
But the value of the Tetris metaphor isn’t in the emotional detachment; it’s in the structure of the game and in the magic of its uncertainty. While you can win a game of chess, a game of Tetris just continues; there is no winning, just navigating the best you can. Intersections of privilege and oppression determine how quickly the tetrominos fall, how often you get the exact piece you need right when you need it. Your success boils down to your ability to operate under imperfect conditions. And putting all your eggs in one long term strategy basket with no room for flexibility can really fuck things up.
Before I wrote this, I played a few hours of Tetris, and to be honest, I suck ass at it. I lose precious seconds struggling to decide where to put an inconvenient tetrad, and once I get anxious, I’m out for the count.
Basically the same reasons why I sometimes suck at life, and while you can lose at Tetris, life usually just keeps on going. Happy eternal Tetris! I wish you many I-shaped tetrads. Those come in clutch.