The game is always changing

The game is never fair. The game is always changing. The pleasure is to play.

I’m sure I’ve never seen my country so polarised, so (almost)
evenly divided. I woke up early this morning, just as the major news outlets
began one by one to “call” the victory of the Leave campaign in the UK’s EU
referendum.

Just under half the country is reeling from what’s
happened. And at least some on the majority side seem now to be developing
feelings of regret, as it sinks in that their vote did count after all (How’s this for a headline? Man who voted for Leave says he thought his vote ‘wouldn’t count’ and is now ‘worried’).

Everyone’s vote did count. Democratic processes have been
followed, and done what they were designed to do.

The result of the EU referendum ushers in a period of
potentially seismic change (as beautifully summed up by this wee tweet from Liz
Buckley).

The game
has changed, decisively. The game is always changing. Throughout life, the
metaphorical rug will always be pulled out from under our feet. The cards will always end up in the air. When they land, the hand we are
dealt will never be entirely to our liking.

“As much as I Iove a melodrama…”
I’ve always loved Marc Almond. As well as a wonderful singer, he seems a fragile and
beautiful soul. He is also a survivor. He’s had more near-death experiences
than most of us, more moments when everything could have
been lost. “
I like situations that force me to rethink things,” he told The Quietus, earlier this year. For Almond, the game is always changing, but he plays it through. I
loved his Twitter response to today’s news.

“So here we Are. We can all turn on each other in bitter
recrimination and sink into an abyss or just get on with it and make it work.”

and

“As in all my life I just get on with the hand I’m dealt.
And as much as I love a melodrama, No hysteria from me.”

My friend Neil Morrison expressed similar sentiments, with
very different words:

“It’s time to start thinking about the opportunities that
will present themselves and how we make the best of them. We cannot wallow.

The problem is wallowing leads to blame, which leads to
finger pointing, which leads to division. And division affords opportunity to
others.”

This is no time to wallow. If you feel like the rug has
been pulled from beneath your feet, it’s time to realise that that’s what the
game does.

The game is never fair. The game is always changing.

The pleasure is to play
If you’re on Twitter, I highly recommend following Ice-T
(aka @FINALLEVEL). He is a constant source of
bracingly expressed wisdom. I particularly like his “daily game” series of
tweets – tiny words of guidance to keep you in the game and to remind you to keep
changing up your game.

Earlier this week, Ice-T shared some particularly relevant
words from the dearly-departed Lemmy:

“The pleasure is to play.. Ya win some, ya lose some,
it’s all the same to me…. Via Lemmy”

• Rackhamful image via Wikimedia Commons.