I believe it was American novelist and civil rights activist Rita Mae Brown who said it first – “happiness is pretty simple – someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to…”

Clever stuff and to think, she came up with that even before Wordle had been invented. What would she say today, now that we have something to look forward to every day …. the anticipation of filling in those five blank squares with green boxes.

I admit to being a little late to the Wordle party, no surprise really given my childhood record. I was the kid who was always half a step behind. By the time I’d cottoned onto collecting football cards, other kids had switched to playing and trading marbles. I get a bag of marbles, they’d moved onto yo-yos. The primary school playground was a long, drawn-out game of catch up that I never quite conquered.

But I digress. Wordle – what a wonderful dimension it’s added to our daily lives. Sudoko for simpletons, busy ones, who are looking to have their grey matter stirred just a little, to get them going in the morning.

It’s kind of like a modern day, digital version of making your bed, an activity that officially marks the start of the day. You wake up, get the coffee going, grab your most convenient digital device, knock over Wordle, and you’re underway.

The performance coaches are probably even pointing to it – win Wordle, win the morning, win the day. How did we function for so long with without it?

It’s not just the tidy, bite-sized chunk of the intellectual stimulation that makes Wordle such a valuable addition to our frantic 21st century existence. The word game has brought people together in ways that other fads never could.

After the horrid sense of isolation that came with Covid, we’ve reconnected via Wordle chat groups – like minded souls coming together in spirited yet harmless combat, reminding one another that one green and two yellow boxes from your starting word doesn’t guarantee success, any more than drawing five blanks points to failure.

It’s a funny game, Wordle – a bit like cricket.

Actually it’s more like golf, in that it’s totally self regulated. Want to impress your fellow Wordle workers with your apparent brilliance? We’re all aware, the correct answer on any morning is just a couple of clicks away. But that’s like recording a “birdie” on your scorecard, when you’ve actually hit one out of bounds and had a double bogey. It’s a test of personal integrity.

More than anything else, I like how Wordle draws out all of life’s wondrously different personalities, even shines a light on a bit of mild dysfunction.

In our eclectic 20-something gathering, we have all the bases covered. There’s Mr Early Bird – I think the latest he’s ever posted his Wordle score is 5.15am. A recent bachelor no less. Probably some mornings, he’s just getting home on account of playing that other “swipe” game.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s Last Minute Les – never commences the puzzle until he’s had an opportunity to scrutinise all the patterns on display. He’s the same guy who knows his stats to within a hundredth of a decimal point.

Then there’s Dr Competitive – he’ll go missing for days on end, before hurtling back into the fold with a succession of threes and twos. A half brother to Last Minute Les.

We’ve got Madam Blabbermouth – she can’t help herself, frequently pointing to the answer via her corny cryptic clues. Quite a few want to throttle her.

There’s The Cheerleader, effusive in her praise, routinely offering a “thumbs up” to any lodgement of four lines or less. Clearly a kind hearted soul, but I think we’re all privately hoping that somebody hides her phone for a few days. Or weeks.

Amid all the bing-bing-binging of The Cheerleader’s “clap clap clap” notifications, we have Peter the Particular.

Peter takes Wordle seriously – very seriously – every morning working fastidiously through all the literary computations and permutations, before committing to his next line.

How do we know that? Because Peter takes screen shots of his inner Wordle workings and shares them – OVER shares them – at social gatherings. “On this one, I wasn’t going to go with TOUCH to elimate the last two vowels, but instead I went with TORCH, because. blah blah..“

SO interesting.

As my 19 year-old son pointed out, “is there any conversation in life sadder than three people explaining how they arrived at the solution to a word puzzle?

So far, he’s resisted the temptation of joining our Wordle group.

Part of me wonders how long we will persist. Will the Wordle fad fade, and give way to something else, the same way football cards faded and gave way to marbles, and marbles gave way to Yo-yos?

Apparently there are only 2309 words in the existing Wordle framework, enough to carry us, the advocates, through until mid 2027.

How do I know that? Peter Particular told me. I’m sure he’s keeping track of the answers, so he can cross them off his master list. Reduce the number of computations and permutations, in his worked-up Wordle brain.

One thing for sure, I’m going to ride the Wordle bus all the way to the terminus – enjoy the journey while it lasts.

That little moment of morning bliss, as Rita pointed out, it helps us keep an eye on life’s main prize.

Besides, I badly want to beat Dr Competitive.

He’s getting way too big for his boots.