As is but one of the captivating series of outlandish adventures that constitute my life

I just got a high-ish score on a game called Drop3. It's essentially tetris, but with a physics engine and different shapes. If a circular piece drops onto a triangular piece, for example, it will roll down its slope until it finds somewhere solid to stop. you have to get three or more colours to touch for them to disappear, and it's all really rather brilliant.
I got the rather splendid score of 169,800, which is the best score this week, the second best this month and the nineteenth best score of all time. Which is rather pleasing when you consider how many people play these games.

But what have I earned from this?
What have I been working towards? Why am I so pleased to have my name on the leaderboard? What have I actually acheived? I haven't really acheived anything, but I'm dizzy with adrenaline and euphoria. What's that all about?
I suppose games are tricking the body. The excitement of a simulated challenge is sending signals to the brain, which must interpret it all as genuine, because games of this sort have not been around long enough for our bodies to evolve to instinctively recognise them as games.
My brain probably thinks I'm tackling a mammoth or something. It thinks 'Bloody hell! If I don't do something, we're fucked!' and desperately tries to save its human host by increasing adrenaline levels and so on and so forth. Hence the dizzying glee that comes from getting a high score. To the brain, that's like not only avoiding the mammoth, but killing two of them, providing enough food for the whole tribe and earning respect from the elders... or something like that. I don't know.

Have I earned anything? Well, apart from the mild respect of anyone who glances at the leaderboard (which isn't anyone who gives a crap anyway), not really, no. But I think it helps to play these games. I think it helps to keep the brain exercised and on its toes, a brain that hasn't completely evolved out of the Stone Age.

But I'm still really rather pleased with the high score. Get in!

Will