Thursday, September 15, 2011

Spin Cycle: Rules and Rulers

Whenever I play a game with a child, I find that sometime during the game, the rules somehow change. And not only that… but they seem to change in favor of the person who changed the rule. Then, when you call them out on the rule they changed before, it somehow changes again.

Rulers are typically used to measure things. We like to see how big or small something is. We like to know how large the field we are playing on is. I am reminded of the scene in the movie Hoosiers where the basket ball coach asks the boys to measure the height of the baskets and the size of the court to prove a point.

I wrote a poem in college that I'll use to illustrate changing the rules:

If you change your boundaries
you must also change the rules to the game

cj85'

When someone is a Ruler they are considered someone who rules over others. They are the ones who watch over us and make sure that we do not step out of bounds. We ourselves are our own rulers because we set limits on what we can and cannot do. As I have gotten older I have come to realize that many of the things I used to be able to do I no longer can do (or if I did, I would regret it later). Because my boundaries have changed, I need to change the rules so I can continue to play the game.

How do you "measure up" to the rules that you restrict yourself with?


small cycle

3 comments:

Sprite's Keeper said...

Sprite changes the rules ALL the time when we're playing together, almost to the point that I just don't want to play with her anymore.
She's starting to realize that the older she gets, the more she needs to play by the rules set by others as well as her own.
You're linked!

Ginny Marie said...

My girls like to change rules to games, too! What's fun to watch is how they make rules to their own, made-up games. It's hard to keep track of all the rules!

Anonymous said...

how many time i do not do what i want to do but do what i dont want to do

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