{"id":4322,"date":"2025-01-03T22:18:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T03:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4322"},"modified":"2025-01-06T22:21:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T03:21:04","slug":"life-at-the-speed-of-tetris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/03\/life-at-the-speed-of-tetris\/","title":{"rendered":"Life at the Speed of Tetris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

One year ago today, a 13-year-old kid from Oklahoma did what was widely considered impossible.

He beat Tetris.

\u201cI\u2019m going to pass out, I can\u2019t feel my fingers,\u201d said Willis Gibson after conquering the mythical level 157 of the best-selling video game in history.

Tetris, to put it mildly, can be habit-forming. It\u2019s been described by Arcade Games<\/em> as \u201cby far, the most addictive game ever.\u201d Electronic Gaming Monthly <\/em>went still farther, declaring it to be the \u201cGreatest Game of All Time.\u201d

If you\u2019ve ever succumbed to those colorful shapes falling like rain, you might be thinking, \u201cIt sure would be fun to be playing Tetris right now.\u201d

The game was the digital brainchild of Alexey Pajitnov, a 28-year-old artificial intelligence researcher working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow.\u00a0He chose \u201cTetris\u201d because it combines the Greek prefix tetra <\/em>(\u201cfour-sided\u201d) and tennis, which happened to be his favorite sport.

From its debut in June 1984, the game spread like wildfire from Moscow to Eastern Europe, and then to the rest of the world.

Social critic and author Orson Scott Card jokes that Tetris \u201cproves that Russia still wants to bury us.\u201d\u00a0Noting that Pajitnov, amazingly, never copyrighted his creation, he wrote, \u201cObviously the game is meant to find its way onto every American machine,\u201d after which productivity would \u201cdrop to zero.\u201d

What makes Tetris so fun and addicting?\u00a0

The game is like a jigsaw puzzle or game of dominoes that never stops moving.\u00a0

The challenge is anticipating how to click into place the next available piece \u2013 which \u201cfalls\u201d into view from the top of the screen \u2013 before it lands on some random spot (one that probably won\u2019t help your score).\u00a0

According to researchers like Dr. Richard Haier, playing Tetris can boost brain activity.\u00a0Experiments have shown that playing a half-hour a day for three months helps those at risk of Alzheimer\u2019s Disease, since the game strengthens \u201ccritical thinking, reasoning, language, and processing.\u201d

Experience in the workplace has also shown playing a half-hour a day leads to playing many hours a day, which quickly leads to unemployment.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0

What happens if you get really good at Tetris?\u00a0What\u2019s the reward for playing well?\u00a0

The game goes faster.\u00a0<\/em>The pieces suddenly begin to descend more quickly.\u00a0<\/em>Here they come. Even the music speeds up. Can you handle the pressure?

Tetris, when you think about it, feels quite a bit like real life.

What happens if you get really good at your job?\u00a0What if your family grows?\u00a0What if a whole new set of responsibilities is suddenly thrust upon you?

Your \u201creward\u201d is that life goes faster.\u00a0You\u2019re given more opportunities.\u00a0There\u2019s more to think about and more to do.

And now success is defined as how quickly you can fit in all the pieces at a pace that once would have seemed insane.\u00a0

We can\u2019t always adjust how quickly life comes at us.\u00a0But we can definitely make adjustments in how we think and feel in the midst of rapid change.

Studies show that people who are great at Tetris are \u201cnon-anxious players.\u201d\u00a0They don\u2019t freak out just because they have no idea which Tetris shape is about to appear.\u00a0Precisely because they know that they cannot <\/em>know, they relax, enjoy the game, and often end up making superb decisions.

And how about real life?\u00a0

We also know that we cannot<\/em> know what relational curveball, what workplace crisis, what 3 am phone call, what surprising chest pain is about to come of the blue and change everything. \u00a0\u00a0

But God knows.<\/em>

And we can know why we trust God \u2013 this God who will not be surprised, intimidated, or thwarted by anything that happens to us.\u00a0 \u00a0

\u201cDo not be anxious about anything,\u00a0but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.\u00a0And the peace of God,\u00a0which transcends all understanding,\u00a0will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus\u201d (Philippians 4:6-7).

You may not be a non-anxious player. But by God\u2019s grace you can learn to be a non-anxious pray-er<\/em> in 2025.

And that just happens to be the only way to win the game that really matters.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here One year ago today, a 13-year-old kid from Oklahoma did what was widely considered impossible. He beat Tetris. \u201cI\u2019m going to pass out, I can\u2019t feel my fingers,\u201d said Willis Gibson after conquering the mythical level 157 of the best-selling video game in history. Tetris, to put it mildly, can be… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[244,179],"class_list":["post-4322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pace-of-life","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4324,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322\/revisions\/4324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}