How you play Spades is how you play life
There was a line in there that reminded me a bit of a thing you might write in a school essay - "When playing Spades, you’re dealt a hand and have no control over the cards you get—unless you’re cheating."  I'm having trouble thinking of a card game where you do get control over the cards you're dealt.  Maybe there is one?I'm reminded of a time in high school where for some reason I had to write an essay connecting Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to some more modern environmentalism ideas.  These "You don't control the hand you're dealt" are exactly the kind of thing that filled those essays in school.  "The monster, representing the unchecked progress of technology, causes great harm to the world..."  You can just draw random connections between any two ideas if you don't limit yourself to strong, unique, or meaningful connections.