"I am playing poker" is a common phrase one hears and that I myself employ too much. This phrase, I'm finding, leads to the mistake of getting the 'will' involved where it should not be.

One needs to not play at all as much as possible. It would be more propritious for one to say "poker is being played."

If one knew perfectly the odds of winning at each moment in the game, one would size ones bets appropriately. I need not play at all; that is, bring biases into the game that would cause me to make me make an inappropriate bet...since, probability, not my willing it to be otherwise, dictates my chances of winning.

The thing is, we must avoid imposing our will upon circumstances; and instead merely see them as they are. In poker, beautiful opportunities present themselves to us, but they come from a place outside of our willing. The wise can distinguish between good and bad opportunities; the unwise cannot tell which is which.

One needs first of all to not play, but to accept the cards that are dealt. In poker, we can never force things to come into existence that are not already there* - that makes matters worse. In poker, more than in life, we cannot influence the cards that we are dealt.

We must be gentle...and stay out of the way...staying in the flow of the game...letting the cards play themselves as much as - no...far more than we play them (since playing them implies doing something extra). Ideally, we do almost nothing at all.

*In life, we can sometimes will things to be-come.

As years go by, one has the opportunity to build up a strong, secure identity...which obscures further from oneself one's true self - which we were closer to in childhood.

Let me be your rock; but even rocks shed tears.

When they do, you're the one I'd wish to be near.

Not to catch them, just to watch them with me while

with you talking, laughing, we watch them fade away.

Yesterday, I went to traffic court and got a few points on my license. This was the highlight of about a 12 hour stretch. The night before, my car glass was shattered and a 3,000 dollar computer was stolen from my car. Just before traffic court, my mother called to tell me my father needed to go to the hospital because his testicles were receding. Years before, he’d had a serious bipolar incidents (which resemble psychosis) when he’d had a similar procedure done, lasting around three weeks. I may not have been my best self.

I thought of what I'd lost, and soothed myself with the present.