The More You Know The Less You Enjoy
Remember the thrill of seeing a magician up close at your table? The excitement and awe especially makes an impression on young kids, but it is not necessarily limited to them. I remember being in my 30′s when I took in an evening at The Magic Castle, in LA, for dinner. I had no idea how those magicians did their slight of hand illusions. I was mesmerized.
I remember another time when a performer showed a group of us how he did a ‘magic’ trick. It was interesting to experience, but that trick was never the same again for me. It lost it’s ‘magic’.
Did you ever hear about the class called ‘Marriage Encounter,’ for couple who want to strengthen their marriages. I was instrumental in the organization of Jewish Marriage Encounter in the Mid-West in the late 1970s. Hundreds of couples attended and most to all found a personal benefit. One of my friends and his wife reluctantly attended at my urging. Charlie’s job was writing. In fact, he had written programs for business, employing the same techniques used by ‘Marriage Encounter’ to stimulate communication and problem solving. Understanding the mechanics, for Charlie, took the ‘magic’ out of the experience. Rather than participating fully, he sat their analyzing the make up of the program.
There is a definite risk, as a scrabble player, when you know more. If you become very good and more competitive and continue to play with the same friends and family, the others will no longer want to play with you, for losing. And you’ll become bored by their novice level of play.
When you study the ‘SATINE STEM’ and learn the 70 bingos that it can produce, the challenge will no longer there for you. You’ll just recognize bingo after bingo when they appear on your rack and you’ll simply earn yet another high score in the game; you beat another opponent. Ho hum.
There are at least two ways to continue enjoying scrabble when you know more.
You can become magicianlike, mastering your art, leaving others steeped in wonder.
or
You can become a teacherliker and share your knowledge, expanding the worlds of other.
Enjoy Life; Enjoy Scrabble