Why is it that what requires an army is always represented by one tiny little man?  Or that incremental power leaves aside the human – “horsepower” – cannon?

Insurmountable odds left to a roll of the dice.

I used to not have patience for this game, the long slow proposition of loss dotted by occasional accidents of “victory.”  Ever outnumbered on defense, I get it now.  I’m 42 years old.  The dice roll all day, and as the sides increase the odds go down and the stakes are higher.

Why even bother to play?  It’s a question we ask regularly.  Such a commitment of time, of energy, attention.  So much spent twiddling thumbs or enduring loss or unwanted wins.

The world is enormous, and yet miniature, even to Legos.

You and me and you, my sons, miniscule players in a massive machine of rules we did not invent.

There must be a reason we play.  I don’t believe we want to defeat one another.  But the commitment.  The attention and energy, the time.  I’m pretty certain we want those things.

So we risk.  Join in, gathering around what becomes a battlefield from a motivation of love, of loneliness, collaborations and deceits, treaties made and broken, a collective misplaced on a board.

Bon chance affection.

And another roll of the dice.

With something agreed from the start.