The New York Times had a thoughtful reflection this morning on John Conway’s Game of Life, created in 1970. Neither a game nor about life as we know it, the computer program visually simulated a world made of a cellular grid with a beginning state and a set of rules for cells that live, reproduce by connecting with others and die. It predated Pong and, while among the simplest of imagined worlds, continues to fascinate fans today, as demonstrated by its own Wiki site: conwaylife.com.
Conway long rued his creation for its popularity, which detracted from his more serious work, though he eventually got wry pleasure for being described as “The inventor of Life.” I couldn’t do Conway’s creation justice here, but it is worth noting that the Game of Life has been used to illustrate the “butterfly effect” and the randomness of – well – life itself.
With that in mind, I found elsewhere that it was 45 years ago tonight that Dan Fogelberg experienced the random meeting that became his bittersweet ballad, Same Old Lang Syne. Jill Greulich and Fogelberg dated in high school in Peoria, Illinois and parted ways, as the song related. Both had returned home for the holidays and ran into each other in a convenience store. She first heard the song some years later on the radio, after she had divorced the husband mentioned, who was not, by the way, an architect.
I suppose we may wish for moments like theirs to reflect on times we recall wistfully. Despite the randomness of life, it has a way at times of winking at you with Fogelberg moments if you are watching. I have had one or two of my own that may be worthy of sharing someday after time has helped process them. What I’ve found though is how much richer life is if you live each day as if it were just such a moment worth preserving, because life is more than a game.
