{"id":380,"date":"2003-06-07T13:05:46","date_gmt":"2003-06-07T17:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/metasj\/on-solitaire-and-recreation\/"},"modified":"2008-02-23T22:06:18","modified_gmt":"2008-02-24T02:06:18","slug":"on-solitaire-and-recreation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/on-solitaire-and-recreation\/","title":{"rendered":"On Solitaire and Recreation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"a105\" name=\"a105\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>recreation<\/strong><\/em> is a remarkable word, whose origins bear going into.  Let me come back to that in a moment.  First I want to write about solitaire.<br \/>\n<strong>Solitaire <\/strong>is a remarkable sort of game.  It proffers virtually <strong>no <\/strong>social, physical, sensual or spiritual <strong>stimulation<\/strong>.  It its simplest forms, even its intellectual stimulation is limited, and it varies less<strong> <\/strong>from instance to instance than most <strong>recreations<\/strong>.  Those on a par with it in 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).\u00a0  The popularity 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>\n<p><u>Nevertheless<\/u>, solitaire remains among the most widely enjoyed recreations in the world, more prevalent than two-person <strong>pasttimes <\/strong>such as dice or rummy, or than <strong>meditative <\/strong>activities as twiddling one&#8217;s thumbs, opening and closing the refrigerator door; and is now only slightly less popular than gazing off into space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>recreation is a remarkable word, whose origins bear going into. Let me come back to that in a moment. First I want to write about solitaire. Solitaire is a remarkable sort of game. It proffers virtually no social, physical, sensual or spiritual stimulation. It its simplest forms, even its intellectual stimulation is limited, and it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":930,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-380","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7iVvB-68","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/930"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}