Shooting The Moon

Have you ever heard the expression “shooting the moon?” I believe it comes from the card game Hearts.

Does anyone know how to play Hearts anymore? Did anyone ever?

Well, my uncle taught me once when I was a lad and it’s one of the only card games I know how to play.

The scoring is kind of like golf, in that you want the lowest score. Each heart card in your hand at the end of the round is a point. You don’t want any hearts in your hand. Also, the queen of spades is worth 13 points for some random reason. Watch out for that bitch. She’ll getcha.

However, there is one unique rule in the game which is a strategy known as “shooting the moon.” To do said moon shooting, you have to deliberately collect every heart card and queen of spades during a round and have them in your hand at the end. If one manages to do this then every other player gets 26 points or you have the choice to remove 26 points from your overall score. Which is good.

It is a risky maneuver. If even one person smells your scheme they will collect one of the heart cards you need and throw you into a mound of dirty points that will sully your ideal low score. Heartless ironic brutes. Hearts is a game where family turns enemy and friends are lost.

I can only remember successfully shooting the moon once. It is risky but decisive move that can turn the tides and win a game for someone.

Many will warn you not to do it. With reason. I can imagine the statistics on the success of the strategy are appalling. But people still try usually because they are already so in the hole with many heart cards in their hand that they decide to say “screw it” and attempt to Shoot the moon.

This is not the way to approach shooting the moon. It is sloppy, impulsive, and impetuous. It must be a deliberate approach. Like a tiger in the sedge meadow stalking the prey with patience and unemotive gaze.

Seriously, this game hurts feelings.

Of course, it is a card game after all and there is more than a bit of luck involved. But the same could be said with the tiger in the bush. It’s prey could startle at any number of things outside of its control.

One must pursue the goal in the face of universal uncertainty. Whether it be luck of the draw or the laws of nature.

Yet time moves on regardless. Chaos and all.

The moon is far away and hard to get to, why bother?. Some inventions are beyond our current possibilities. Why even try to invent them?

Most everything that will exist in 30 years has not even been thought of yet. Entire industries, culture, a new batch of human adults.

Some fear the future. Others want to control its exact path. Neither’s predictions or efforts will be right. They are afraid of phantasms or trying to wrestle sand, respectively.

In a sense most all of us fall somewhere in the spectrum between those two ends. But I like to err on the side of the moon shot. Always striving to change the game. True, my analogy to the card game implies that other’s are losing at my benefit, so sure, it’s not the best metaphor. I really must reiterate that the only way to actually win the game in real life is by helping other people win their game. In that I suppose is a nice answer and point to leave on.

We are all playing a game, be it is our own game within our own heads within our own lives. We may bump games with others in our life and intermingle the rules, emotions, and paraphernalia. Hell, we can even spawn new people playing their own game that we don’t even recognize some rules in.

But it always comes back to the one inside of your own head. That’s the rulebook you are in charge of. When other people’s rules stop making sense to your game, don’t abide by them. Do what you must do.

Sometimes people don’t expect the moonshot, and that’s why it works.