There are two word games I play daily on the Internet. One is Words With Friends 2, a fancier version of the Scrabble-derived Words With Friends, and the other is Boggle. I play Words With Friends mostly with a handful of people I know in real life. Boggle I play in tournaments and with individuals, and I play anyone, which can be downright humbling when up against a player far better than I am. WWF2 and Boggle are made by the same game-maker, and one of the similarities is that at the end of a game a player is invited to “See who won!”

See Who Won turns out to be a perfect triple-acrostic spine, so I gave it a whirl. It’s really hard to read the acrostic poem in the image above, so here is a transcription, lightly edited for clarity.

see who won

sissy fuss is how we grow
enterprise and march and go
endocrines ahoy — c’est bon

For fifteen and a half words, there is a lot to unpack. “Sissy fuss” is a bad pun of Sisyphus, the poor guy of Greek myth who is condemned to eternally roll a burdensome stone up a hill. “Resistance training” found in many gyms and fitness centers is downright Sisyphean. You push and pull and climb and run a treadmill and never get anywhere. Even so, you gain muscle mass and you make more efficient use of oxygen. So going nowhere gets you somewhere, and if you’re blessed with good biomechanics and work ethic, you may find yourself in competitions. And some of the biggest Sissy Fusses ever made are at competitions.  One such just occurred at Wimbledon, and two players were fined.

It takes enterprise to succeed. Inherited wealth is not success.  Making the world a better place is, and it makes you a better person to boot. If you have life goals, it helps to march toward them resolutely.

As for endocrines, here’s a quotation for hopkinsmedicine dot org: “The endocrine system is a complex network of glands and organs. It uses hormones to control and coordinate your body’s metabolism, energy level, reproduction, growth and development, and response to injury, stress, and mood.” No one succeeds without a contribution from their endocrine system. “C’est bon” is French for “This is good.”

My drawing is meant to be a mysterious metaphor for winning and winners. I apologize for the murk–I both underworked and overworked my penciling. I imposed a deadline for myself of today, and got a little too ambitious with the implied planets and archetypical competitors and pseudo-calligraphy and such. But if you look carefully you’ll find a niftily drawn cat, and the clear message that felines are born winners.

I can’t think of a better way to be a winner than by practicing the wisdom imparted by George Carlin as Rufus in the Bill & Ted movies. “Be Excellent To Each Other,” Friends! 🙂