Still Climbing, Still Falling – The Duality of Life

Chutes and Ladders is regarded today as a worldwide classic.¹ The American version of the game, was released by Milton Bradley in 1943. Played on a 10×10 board, players advance their pieces according to a spinner rather than a die. The theme of the board design is playground equipment, showing children climbing ladders and descending chutes. The artwork on the Chutes and Ladders game board teaches morality lessons: squares on the bottom of the ladders show a child doing a good or sensible deed, at the top of the ladder there is an image of the child enjoying the reward; squares at the top of the chutes show children engaging in mischievous or foolish behavior, on the bottom of the chute the image shows the children suffering the consequences.²

Snakes and Ladders, the forerunner to Chutes and Ladders, originated in ancient India as Moksha Patam, and was brought to the UK in the 1890s. It is played on a game board with numbered squares. A number of “ladders” and “snakes” were pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares. The object of the game was to navigate one’s game piece, according to die rolls, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped by climbing ladders but hindered by falling down snakes.

Snakes and Ladders had its roots in morality lessons, on which a player’s progression up the board represented a life journey complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes). It was also associated with traditional Hindu philosophy contrasting karma and kama, or destiny and desire.

The top of the game board featured gods, angels, and majestic beings, while the rest of the board was covered with pictures of animals, flowers and people. The ladders represented virtues such as generosity, faith, and humility, while the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder, and theft. The morality lesson of the game was that a person can attain liberation (Moksha) through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn as lower forms of life. The number of ladders was less than the number of snakes as a reminder that a path of good is much more difficult to tread than a path of sins. Presumably, reaching the last square (number 100) represented the attainment of Moksha (spiritual liberation).³

A recent personal experience reminded me of the life lessons inherent in both of these board games. If you’ve ever played Chutes and Ladders or Snakes and Ladders, you know how it feels to make progress towards the finish, only to land on a chute that takes you back to the start. Most of us do not relish the thought of finding ourselves ‘back on square one’ so we strive feverishly to attain our goals and finish the game (move forward in life).

I was in Florida on vacation last month and decided to play pickle ball with my family. While practicing and beginning to learn the intricacies of the sport, I had a nasty fall. I landed on my left side and then my head smashed into the court. The impact of my head meeting the concrete broke my glasses at the hinge while the eyeglass frame sliced my forehead open above my eyebrow. I ended up spending over 7 hours in ER waiting to get a cat scan and x-ray to rule out a brain bleed, concussion, and broken ribs. When all was said and done, I was fortunate to only end up with 7 stitches above my eye, a very nasty shiner, and bruised ribs.

Such is life! There are times when we set out to try out something new and end up badly bruised, broken, and shaken. That day, it was as if the universe decided to throw me a curve ball and I whiffed landing flat on my face. Still, I was looking forward to playing the game and I envisioned the paddle connecting with the ball prior to the moment of impact. Such is the duality of life – a whiff (failure to connect despite our best efforts) versus connection (a volley, a succession of perfect shots rifled back and forth with little time to react). A fault (something that impairs or detracts from physical perfection; a mistake or error; a dead ball, the end of the perfect volley).

Let’s face it, life can suck sometimes. The pitfalls of reality are we’ve all felt the hurt, the ache, the headache, the dull pain of unfortunate events. Each of us have met the dark side of life. We have all, in one way or another, been uncomfortable and experienced something that didn’t feel so good in the mind and/or the body.

Here is the upside, the other side, the alternative thought; there are two sides to every coin. Every failure exists as the counter of success, every pain counters the great feeling of comfort in the body. Even the rising and setting of the sun daily ensures us that darkness is followed by the light.

Chutes and Ladders – Life Lessons
The phrase ‘back to square one’ originated in the game of Snakes and Ladders, or at least was influenced by it.⁵Within all games are morals and lessons to be learned. For every ladder you hope to climb in life there is a chute waiting around the corner. And for every chute there is a ladder eagerly awaiting your climb upward.Lessons Learned
As in the Chutes and Ladders game, there were lessons to be learned from my unfortunate pickle ball experience that had many similarities to this game we call LIFE:

In the end, this game called LIFE goes on to be played again and again. There is no start and no finish but an infinite loop of possibilities and outcomes. The only difference between the reality of life and the board games people play is in LIFE not much is left to luck, chance or the spin of the wheel or roll of the dice.

Instead, each of us has been given the freedom to choose how we approach life and how we handle its myriad of outcomes. It’s important we choose wisely and our choices are heart-felt.