An In-Depth Study: The Game

Cannot be seen,
Cannot be felt,
Cannot be touched, heard, or smelt
Cannot be won,
Cannot be fun.
What am I?

THE GAME.


For many long years (in reality about twelve), 'The Game' has been a subject baffling the best of philosophers (cause it's stupid). Everyone's playing it, but no one ever wins it - and its curse only lifts after death (stupid, I say).

Excuse me a second, Reaper seems to have a (talent) problem with inserting (clarifications) unhelpful parenthetical (facts) INTERRUPTIONS. Shutcha ghostly mouth.

As I was saying, the game has been a mystery for quite a while. I first learned of it a couple years after joining Boy Scouts, where I was introduced to the most mood-killing device of all time - yes, The Game.

What are the rules to the game?
1. Everyone in the world is playing The Game. (Sometimes narrowed to: "Everybody in the world who knows about The Game is playing The Game", or alternatively, "You are always playing The Game.") A person cannot not play The Game; it does not require consent to play and one can never stop playing.

2. Whenever one thinks about The Game, one loses.

3. Losses must be announced to at least one person (either by using a statement such as "I lost The Game" or by alternative means). After a player has announced a loss, some variants allow for a grace period between three seconds to thirty minutes to forget about the game, during which the player cannot lose the game again.

A method of finishing 'The Game' is that whenever the President of the US, the Pope, or the Prime Minister of the UK says 'The Game Is Up', The Game automatically terminates and you are free. But this method also detracts from the torture of having to play the game for all your life, so it is commonly discredited.

The origins of The Game are uncertain. One theory is that when two men missed their last train and had to spend the whole night on a platform, they tried not to think about their situation and whoever did first, lost. Another is that it was invented in London in 1996 "to annoy people". The reported earliest known reference on the Internet is from 2002.

The Game is an example of ironic processing (also known as the "White Bear Principle"), in which attempts to avoid certain thoughts make those thoughts more persistent.

Welcome to The Game. Now, my well-informed reader, begin a long life of torture and failure. Why? Because, ladies and gentlemen, I lost The Game. 

(the stupid one)

Sharrap.