We want to believe the illusion is real, or else it wouldn't be any fun. It wouldn't be any fun, either, if the competition weren't very good and the score weren't very close. George Leonard explains, In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize the play. The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt. Similarly, the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos.
Every important call is a close one.
We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth. We really wouldn't want it any other way. He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh. As we're playing this game of life, something occasionally reminds us not to take it all too seriously. It's called humor.