Rock Paper Scissors; Redux

A game for Life?

Hello friends and readers! The Rim Country of Arizona—a little town called Payson. We’re spending our summer in the pines and surrounded by public lands with all the recreational options associated with it. The dogs are in heaven.

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As is my occasional habit at the front-end of the week I’m re-posting an essay from a time early in my Substack adventure. This one surfaced to me again for some obvious—and some not-so-obvious—reasons. We are surrounded by venomous language. While little of it is actually produced on paper anymore—I believe it’s still appropriate to refer to paper. Rocks and scissors could certainly be viewed as tools—or weapons—or talismans depending upon your perspective. That’s what this essay is about—with a little game history thrown in. Enjoy.

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Background

A simultaneous, zero-sum hand game. Many people know it as Rochambeau. Others know the game in variations. The legend is that the RPS originated during the American Revolution, and is sometimes attributed to Count Rochambeau, although evidence points to no wide adoption of the game in the US until the 1930s. In 1780, Rochambeau was appointed commander of land forces. He was given the rank of Lieutenant General in command of 7,000 French troops and sent to join the Continental Army under George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. So, there’s that. That’s more likely why he has a statue in Washington DC. Still others attribute the RPS game to a similar Japanese game called jan-ken-pon. Many practitioners call the hand game Shoot.

Novelist Alice Feeney published in 2022 a book titled Rock, Paper, Scissors that was an instant NYT Best Seller. Jessica Chastain’s production company quickly purchased the film rights to the Scottish-based relationship thriller. There’s that word—relationship. Rock, paper, scissors is certainly not referenced often in discussions of relationships. Maybe I should read that book.

Regardless of its source it is often used as a way to settle a dispute, or to create an order of choice from an otherwise disordered or random choice.

The Weight of Things

For our purposes today, I want to start by discussing the physical and emotional weight of the things. A rock is by its very nature a heavy object. It is grounded by where it came from. To hold a rock in one’s hand is to feel substance—soil—earth. It has been said in philosophy that strong people are like rocks that the World crashes against. Writers and movie producers have illustrated this idea in countless ways. One of Hollywood’s top actors, Dwayne Johnson, now goes almost exclusively by his pro wrestling ring name The Rock. Simply throw a rock into water in a variety of different angles to witness one form of impact. Throw it at a tree and see an entirely different impact. Rocks have substance. Rocks can be used as a stabilizing force to build homes and stairs and walls. The rock was useful for millennia as a weapon—often hurled—slung—or—catapulted into a crowd to inflict damage.

A pair of scissors by its very nature represents duality. It’s not a knife, but a pair of one-sided knives bolted together to make a useful tool for cutting and separation. We call it a pair of scissors. Yet it is clearly a singular tool, useless without both its parts. Scissors have real weight metaphorically as well. Often, we need to cut—to separate things or people or habits from our lives.

Paper is weightless—flighty. Opposite to a rock in that it be easily moved or influenced. Paper is easily blown about by the wind or the culture or the situation. One minute it’s in your hand—the next minute it flies away. But in current times you can change the weight of paper by adding words to it. A sentence, a phrase, a poem, a lyric. A book has weight. Words on paper (or a screen) have weight in today’s world.

Context

With that said, which material wins. Well in the game of shoot the rock crushes the scissors, the scissors cut the paper, and the paper covers the rock. In that one moment of the game that’s true. But in real life?

Back to the real weight of each, more is revealed. Scissors are by nature a coming together. As a singular tool it can cut free the things that need to be cut away. But the two pieces of a pair of scissors are a pairing in and of themselves, right? One side doesn’t really work without the other. Paper is blown about. But paper with words on it has the ability to cut apart just like scissors. It can also slam us upside the head like a rock. Stab us in the heart like a pair of scissors. Paper also the power to bring together and stabilize. Each thing can approximate the other thing in different uses and contexts.

Weapons of Influence

Have you ever read a book, an essay, a sentence, a creation of words on paper that hit you like a rock? Cut you like a pair of scissors? I have. The Bible. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. A favorite poem or novel. My bride’s wedding vows.

When you pick it up or put it down you feel the physical weight of it. After you read all or part of it, its weight is felt in your soul. Certainly, if someone stood in front of you on the street—at your front door—on a plane—with a pair of scissors in their hand, you’d question their intent. Running with Scissors is a famous memoir (and movie) by Augusten Burroughs. He tells of many situations in his young life that can best be described as dangerous and frightening. Running with scissors would be something your parents would warn about and guard against. As for paper, the myriad ways in which it can be wielded as a weapon are obvious. The process of receiving a summons to appear or a lawsuit would qualify. A Dear John letter.

All of this brings me back to an oft-used theme in my essays—the relationship to things. None of these objects is good, bad, moral, or suspect upon surface observation. It is how we relate to these objects, and how we use them that is relevant.

To Sobriety and Recovery

Alcohol, just like drugs, organized religion, food, exercise, words, guns, sex—rocks, paper, and scissors are tools that can be used for good or for bad. Our perception of those things is based upon how we’ve seen them used. How did our parents use them? How did our peers and colleagues use them? How does society at large use them? How were they used historically?

Only when we truly call into question our relationship to things can we live an examined life.

I can choose to think of a rock as a symbol of this precious earth that provides our energy and our bounty. Stability. Grounding. I might think of scissors as a vital household tool, but also symbolically as a way to cut free of old habits—old ways of thinking—old relationships to things.

Let it go. Set it free. Don’t try to control it.

Paper can be thought of as a tool of soft delivery—of creativity—of loving or positive communication. I can think of and relate to and use these things in ways that help rather than hurt.

How does the hand game itself play into this?

Sure, Rochambeau is fun. You can play it to decide who pays the dinner tab—and I’ve gotten stuck with some whoppers in my day—who drives or gets shotgun—who gets the last ice cream bar. It’s a way of allowing the random nature of statistics and probability to settle simple decisions—rather than one person in the group getting to decide.

But would you really use it to determine weighty, real-life choices? Would you pick a life partner with RPS? Determine an investment choice? Maybe. Maybe not.

I’m not playin.’ My relationship to things has created the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life. Examining the choices made in those moments—around those things just might save you.

Ready? Shoot!