Winning

So it's small things that get you excited, small triumphs, little steps on the road to wherever.

So the other day I'm playing poker. I've just moved up to the 22s and as usual, when I move up, I run really bad. I had lost a couple of hundred bucks, which is not much, but when you have painstakingly won it a buck at a time, it feels like a lot. It's a feature of poker that losing seems a lot easier than winning.

So I'm losing, and the little whiny child in me is saying, let's give up poker. We're not good enough and now we're getting our comeuppance.

But there's a stronger me: an experienced, smart poker player, who has studied and learned. And that guy looked around the table and said, hang on, no one here, literally no one, has the first clue how to play an STT. And my edge, my ability to win, is strongly expressed in being able to say that, to know that I am the only player there with the ability to win money over the long term.

Today, I got a bunch of new work. The local paper's chief sub has offered me casual shifts and my people in Singapore have given me a new project. And I know, if I let myself know it, that if I don't give in to self pity, I can survive, and better than that, thrive.

The monkey can get fucked. Because I know that happiness is not illusory. I know that I am the guy who can write a wicked bassline, beat the 55s in time, edit anything, massage you into paradise, fuck you till you're sore, win. I can win. I knew it in an instant.

And I came second. (Sometimes that's like winning [insert winky].) It's enough. I am going home. I am soon going to be walking the streets of an English city, and everything will be okay. All that ails me will vanish, and I will have my pear tree.

Yes, fuck the monkey. I will have my pear tree. I am telling you now, you can count on it. Bear with me; where I have it in my power, you will have yours too. Can we not rise up? Can we not overcome our monkeys?

I know it won't last. I know I'm manic and the crash awaits. I don't care. You will never understand. You will never know that it is all worth it. It's like a cycle. At the top, I love you. I love you so much I am bursting with it. At the bottom, I hate everyone, myself the most. But I wouldn't trade it. I mean, I couldn't trade it.

I feel like laughing maniacally and I don't care. LOLOLOLOLOL. See? Tonight, Zenita was trying on her new hat, which Mrs Zen bought for her, because we will soon be in a place that is cold for months on end, not just the odd night (and I am sitting out on our back verandah on a midwinter night, in a light jumper). She was so perfect, a little hippie chick, beautiful and spirited, real and tangible. I do not know how to tell you how much I love her. You would have to feel it to know how it is.

How lucky we are! Us dads, how lucky we are to feel this overwhelming, wonderful love we have for our girls and our gentle, beautiful boys. How lucky we are sometimes to be winners, to rise above it and be, for a moment or two, better than the world we have been marooned in. Three cheers for us. Fuck the monkey. He does not cheer. He leers and hopes to see us fail. But if we live, and have hope, he cannot ever see us fail. If we live.

I will have my pear tree. Come with me. We will have it together. I have stopped being shit when I lose. I have learned that losing is just one more step on the way to winning. I am better than the world I am a stranger in. I will be home soon. Fuck the monkey. He is not coming with me. He is not coming. He is going to stay here. He belongs here, the miserable cunt. Come with me. Let's succeed. Let's be people we can fall in love with. Let's be manic forever. Let's win.

Let's win. We're good enough. Look around. No one at this table has a clue. We are not opposed to them. We are just who and what we are. We do not have monkeys to hold us back. We have a strong, deep understanding of love, and that is our salvation, nothing else, and nothing between us and winning, always, winning.

posted by Dr Zen @ 10:07 pm