COLUMN: Needing to play a childhood game

GUEST COLUMNIST: Jonathan Leiken GUEST COLUMNIST: Jonathan Leiken There are basically two kinds of people in the world: people who play the "What If" Game, and people who don't. You are walking or sitting somewhere, usually with a friend. Then you have a purposeless thought and say to your friend: "What if everyone walked around like this?" You then start walking around in some weird way, like with your hands between your legs. And your friend laughs, and perhaps builds on your original "What If" with a "What If" of his own. He might say, "Yeah, and what if everyone who walked like that also kept yelling the word 'POTATO' really loud?" And then the two of you are walking down the street with your hands between your legs yelling "POTATO" really loud. And that is the "What If" game. If you are nodding at this point, then you have probably played the "What If" game before. If so, then you are a member of a historic and much maligned bunch of weirdos. Socrates, for instance, was put to death for playing the "What If" game (in particular, for playing it with a bunch of little boys). Galileo was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for playing it. Ross Perot, a respected and powerful business tycoon, transformed himself into a national clown, all because he played the "What If" game in a series of prime-time infomercials. You might say that people who play the "What If" game are dreamers. You might say that they are schizophrenics. Whatever they are, though, they's my kind of people. We keep playing the "What If" game, despite the poor treatment we get, because it makes us laugh. And because it sums up what we think about the world: it is for the most part an absurd and non-sensical place where weird and silly things happen all the time. I used to date this girl, who hated the "What If" Game. She thought it was strange to walk around saying "What If" this and "What If" that all the time. We would be walking in a mall and I'd say something like: "What if that guy over there offered us a million dollars if we would pretend to be his friends for an hour?" And she'd say, "What do you mean? Do you know that guy? What are you talking about?" She eventually got used to my "What Iffing" all the time. But she never liked it. There came a point when she just couldn't take it any more. We were walking in a park one day, and I said, "What if that bird up there..." and she screamed, "What If! What If! What If! THAT'S ALL YOU EVER SAY!" I assume she only wanted to discuss things that were actually in existence, instead of hypotheticals. Here is my idea of what an ideal conversation would be for her: ME: "That bird is black." HER: "Yes, and it is sitting on a tree." ME: "Yes. And we are both homo sapiens." And so on. Needless to say, I haven't spoken to her in quite some time. The "What If" game has some therapeutic value too. In scary situations where you're so nervous that you're paralyzed, just play the "What If" game and everything then becomes sort of funny and senseless. I was taking a particularly difficult exam during my first year of law school, and if it hadn't been for the "What If" game I might have bombed it -- I was so nervous. All I needed to do to calm my nerves, though, was to imagine my eighty-year-old law professor walking around the law school in a scuba suit. After that I was fine. So that's the "What If" game. Anyone who plays it, swears by it. There's no reason to be so serious all the time, and let's not be so drab as to limit ourselves to the facts. There's so many kooky things to think about, it doesn't matter that they're not likely to happen. If you've never played, why not give the "What If" game a try? In any case, it's certainly better than smoking.