Now my wrists hurt: Meditation on Pinball

I got the urge to play some pinball this morning. I suppose I should say I was unable to suppress my urge to play pinball this morning. I'm one of those folks who can't pass a pinball machine without plunking a few quarters in. There was a pinball machine in the basement that I would play before I knew how to read. I'm pretty sure I logged enough hours in college to major in pinball - certainly more time than I spent in class. Pinball is ideal for the shiftless college student or layabout adult -- it's cheap, tactile and intermittently rewarding. Plus it's loud and bright!

There's a subtext to pinball that, I think, is the true appeal. The eponymous ball is perfectly spherical steel. Unyielding. Fast-moving. If you look closely at a pinball you'll see your own face distorted and looking back at you. A pinball player only has limited influence over that ball. Of the entire pinball playfield the only area you control is the tiny radius of your flippers. A playfield which is quite literally tilted against you. From the minute you put those quarters in you're going to lose. The game is designed that way. The pinball parlor owner is relying on it. It's as inescapable as gravity.

Except...

Sometimes you don't. Sometimes, only very rarely, through some combination of skill and luck a single game will last forever. You enter the elusive state some call flow. That three ounce ball bends to your will. You rack up more extra games than you can possibly play. You could go until ragnarok. Or at least until you have to pick your sister up from the airport. As you leave your machine and bequeath your free games to a spectator: you've won. You've proven your inherent worth on an un-leveled playing field.

Yeah, there's a lot of other ways to get this feeling. Winning a marathon, becoming a captain of industry, writing a best-selling novel are all perfectly good ways too. I submit there's no other way to do it in a laundromat, waiting for a dryer.