DMB Digest: Word Games and Dumb Luck
What are the chances, right?
Who doesn’t enjoy a good word game? I mean, other than heathens and goldbrickers and salty teenagers. No offense. I’m sure if you don’t enjoy a good word game, you are the exception to the rule. Naturally.
In my family, we have a salty teenager. But the other three of us have been enjoying a summer of New York Times online word games. Either around breakfast or dinner, we’ve been sharpening the old frontal lobe via Wordle, Connections, and Strands.
If you’ve ever played Wordle and/or similar game puzzles, you’re familiar with the mix of vocabulary, syntax, and grammar necessary to excel at them. But if you’ve played these games long enough, you’ve probably also experienced a moment of uncanny intuition. Or as some would call it, blind luck. You pluck a five letter word out of thin air and simply type it in. Let’s go with, “wrath.” And as “luck” would have it, that happens to be the exact five letter word the Wordle peeps chose to highlight that day.
Wow, what are the chances, right? Well, according to the New York Times, the chances are about 1 in 15,000. So either you’ve played Wordle every day for the last forty-one years and therefore were bound to get it right on the first try eventually…or you were really, really, really lucky.
What if there was a third option? You know, that thing we call intuition. What the bleep is intuition anyway? How are we to think about it in any sort of disciplined way? Or in a scientific manner so to speak? The other day, playing Wordle, I was simply convinced the word contained a “th.” I don’t know why. After our first guess, all we knew was the word contained an “e” somewhere that wasn’t in the exact middle. Probability dictated the “e” would most likely be in the last spot. At least that’s my assumption currently and at the time. And I “felt” the word had a “th” in the middle of it. The letter “i” was one of the only two vowels we didn’t guess in the first word. (And “u” was the other one. Bleck.)
Due to my personal control issues, I have to the be the person that types the guesses into the iPad when we play Wordle around the table. So I shrugged and started typing in the word, “lithe.” “Lithe” contained an “i”, placed the “e” in the most likely spot, and plopped a “th” in the place that felt right to me.
My youngest son complained, “What does lithe mean? Are you sure that’s a word?” [Full disclosure: I am guilty of frequently trying words that aren’t actually words.] The wife interjected: “I think it’s a wood planing tool.” (I’m proud she mostly knows what a lathe is.)
First I rolled me eyes. (I’m just that mature.) Next, I corrected my son. Of course lithe is a word. Then I provided a definition that was mostly right along with a dismissive wave of my hand. “Oh, it means thin and flexible.” (I later had Alexa provide a bit more refined definition.) Lastly, I hit the “enter” button to finalize the guess. It turned out to be the right one.
Wow. What were the chances? Clearly they were better than 15,000 to 1. I’ve no idea how many word options actually remained in play. But I’m absolutely sure the odds were against us. Through a combination of deductive reasoning and “dumb luck” we landed on the correct five-letter word, “lithe.”
Maybe it was exactly that, dumb luck. Guess enough times, and you’re bound to guess right eventually. Even a broken watch is correct twice a day…unless it’s digital. But what if your dumb luck is way too smart to fit the probability? What if you stop to do the math, and the math tells you your luck is pretty dang smart. Not smart enough to beat the house in Vegas. But too smart to be dumb or to be explained as luck at all.
That’s when we arrive at this thing we call intuition, right? I have a friend that swears she knew every time her baby was hungry, even if the baby was in the next room or miles away from her. Mother’s intuition. I have another friend who woke up in the middle of the night suddenly and sharply convicted they needed to forgive an uncle who had really embarrassed and belittled them when they were much younger. The uncle lived on the other side of the globe, and they hadn’t seen each other in years. The next day, they find out the same uncle had died at the same time they had awoke. Intuition. We chalk all kinds of moments up to it. But what is it? Dare we ask the question? Dare we take a closer look?
I can’t help it. I dare.
From the Desk of DMB
This week, I’ve taken a break from actively working on my “Catching Jars” manuscript. But of course I’ve not taken a break from thinking. As I sharpen my thoughts about the subject matter of this book, I know I’m improving the narrative down the road. It’s been nice to have a few extended moments to simply sit and “lose myself” in thought and prayer. I know, I know. Prayer is such a loaded word for some. We all have ideas of what it is and what it isn’t and/or what it is supposed to be. That’s part of the fun for me. Obviously no one alive understands everything there is to understand about a topic such as prayer. Many with strong opinions about it don’t even practice it. Many who practice it don’t even realize they’re practicing it. But I guess that all depends on your definition. I just can’t fight the feeling that most of life lies outside the realm of our traditional five senses. And I don’t really care to fight it.
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