{"id":380,"date":"2003-06-07T13:05:46","date_gmt":"2003-06-07T17:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/on-solitaire-and-recreation\/"},"modified":"2003-06-07T13:05:46","modified_gmt":"2003-06-07T17:05:46","slug":"on-solitaire-and-recreation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/on-solitaire-and-recreation\/","title":{"rendered":"On Solitaire and Recreation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a105'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><P><EM><STRONG>recreation<\/STRONG><\/EM> is a remarkable word, whose origins bear going into.&nbsp; Let me come back to that in a moment.&nbsp; First I want to write about solitaire.<\/P><br \/>\n<P><STRONG>Solitaire <\/STRONG>is a remarkable game.&nbsp; It proffers virtually <STRONG>no <\/STRONG>social, intellectual, physical, sensual or spiritual <STRONG>stimulation<\/STRONG>.&nbsp; It its simplest forms, it <STRONG>varies less <\/STRONG>from instance to instance than most any other recreation.&nbsp; Those on a par with it in&nbsp;terms of <STRONG>limitation of choice <\/STRONG>tend to produce lasting (knitting, coloring by number) or temporary (braiding) <STRONG>results <\/STRONG>that can be <STRONG>enjoyed <\/STRONG>by others, <STRONG>develop <\/STRONG>some physical dexterity or strength (hackisack), or <STRONG>improve skills <\/STRONG>which are generally useful (holding one&#8217;s breath until blue).&nbsp; The existence of solitaire is often defended with the explanation that it is a peaceful way to pass the time, yet so is most anything when unhurried &#8212; hygiene, cooking, stretching &#8212; and all with other satiating benefits besides.<\/P><br \/>\n<P><U>Nevertheless<\/U>, solitaire remains one of the most widely enjoyed recreations in the world, in many ways more prevalent than two-person <STRONG>pasttimes <\/STRONG>such as dice or rummy, and than such <STRONG>meditative <\/STRONG>activities as twiddling one&#8217;s thumbs, opening and closing the refrigerator door, or gazing off into space.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>recreation is a remarkable word, whose origins bear going into.&nbsp; Let me come back to that in a moment.&nbsp; First I want to write about solitaire. Solitaire is a remarkable game.&nbsp; It proffers virtually no social, intellectual, physical, sensual or spiritual stimulation.&nbsp; It its simplest forms, it varies less from instance to instance than most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-380","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}