Life Plinko
I finally watched an episode of The Wall. It’s a game show and it involves people answering questions and a giant game of plinko. Some people are on-screen and others are off-stage, and no one can communicate with one another. It’s like chance on overdrive. You need a lot of things to line up — most outside of your control — in order to win.
I watched the show because I read about it on FiveThirtyEight:
As the orbs skitter and kerplunk their way down the wall, the contestants scream, beg and plead with the wall to deliver the orb into the desired slot. They beseech; they supplicate; they importune. Actually, the only really fitting verb for what they do is “pray.” They pray to the wall.
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And it’s precisely this deeply believed illusion — that you can fight fate, that you can control the randomness, that prayer works if you just pray hard enough — that makes the show so fascinating. Don’t get me wrong: When the show’s on, I, the supposedly cold, statistically minded viewer, deeply believe that I can control the randomness, too.
The one episode we saw didn’t feel like entertainment. It wasn’t like Jeopardy where it comes down to your base of knowledge or Ellen’s Game of Games where everyone is having a great time having whipped cream blown into their face. This was painful to observe. I wanted the couple to win. At the very least, I didn’t want them to walk away disappointed.
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Adding to the tension is that you can’t be contestant twice. I mean, maybe you can, but let’s assume that contestants get one chance to play the game and see the outcome. There is no time to learn, no time to gather information, no time to try something new. It’s just chance.
And I don’t know which is worse: to do the same thing over and over again, trying new things as we do in family building, or getting one shot and then walking away knowing that the outcome was out of your hands.
I have prayed to pee sticks. I have sat with my hands clasped in prayer, watching the window. I have asked it to show me what I want to see as if it has the power to decide whether or not I’m pregnant.
The oversized and minuscule tangible reminders of chance.
2 comments
Wow, powerful analogy. I feel like for me, from a family building perspective, there might be a freedom in knowing you have one shot and when it’s done it’s done rather than the neverending list of options and opportunity to slam your head against the wall hoping for that orb to go into just the right slot. It would be full of pressure to have that one shot, and if it didn’t work out you could mourn hard, but it wouldn’t be the prolonged torture that can be available to people to just keep trying and trying and trying and never see that ball hit the slot. Love this post! (And I’m never going to watch that show.)
There is a difference, though, between the randomness of plinko and the lines on a pee stick. One is being created and reported in the moment; the other was created at some point in the past and is just about to be reported.
Not sure any of that matters, though. I remember, while doing the same praying, thinking that my fate had already been sealed; I just didn’t know what that fate was, yet.