It was a bumpy ride, this past year...
2010 started pretty awesome with a big night out and great weekend of crushing $60 Sit'n'Go's at Full Tilt. It went all downhill after that.
The trip to Cambodia was a welcome escape from reality. Running away from winter to spend a month with the family-in-law in sunny Sihanoukville... But that trip would be the last shimmering bright spot of 2010...In Spring I tried to clean up my act. I subscribed to DeucesCracked and started studying poker rigorously. Even quitted smoking for a while, drank a lot less, went to the gym regularly and dabbled with zen buddhism...
It got me nowhere.
Neither my life, my attitude or my poker-winnings chanced during those healthy months. Everything was exactly the same. No break-throughs, no life-changing experiences, no nothing in that sober world. Maybe one can call it 'variance'. I don't know. Maybe the sample size (one Spring) was too small. It just didn't work for me.
During Summer I lost all hope and silly dreams to make serious money playing poker. My bankroll took a big hit and my soul got crushed by better players. The dream was over. In August I was 4tabling 200NL 6max Rush Poker. That's like doing crack cocaine. It gave me the high of a lifetime. Sitting at a Rush table with over $1K and crushing is a baller experience.
Alas, it didn't last.
When the hot streak ended I kept on playing 200NL way too long... Simply couldn't believe that those dudes where better than me. When reality finally caught up I needed to drop down to 50NL to build up my resources again...
In the end I closed the year with just a meager +$2K profit... It's something. Something like nowhere near enough to get excited about. Not the kind of money that could give me the confidence to escape this sad, cold city for good...
In Autumn I got seriously side-tracked. No more poker for some time to come.
My world got turned up side down when my marriage collapsed. It turned out that love is nothing but a joke. That really romantic happily-for-ever-after-shit only happens in the movies. I really didn't know...
By the time Autumn turned into winter I was living on my own again. Things have been bleak since then. Slowly trying to find my way out of the sinking black hole that my ex-wife left behind...
It has been a tough winter.
2010 was the year of the fish.
A fish in the life. A fish in love. A fish at 200NL Rush poker.
Something's always going on but I never really seem to know what it is.
About break-even in poker.
Broke in love.
Crushed in life.
The edges are too thin.
This world is too solid.
It was a grim, grim year. But I'm still here.
Don't know where it is that I'm going from here.
Still learning, still yearning for the sunshine.
Craving for dusty roads and big open skies.
Nothing holds me back any longer.
No more lame excuses.
No more family future that needs to be secured.
I can do what I want.
I'm alone. I'm free.
Got a big bag of ganja and a fine bottle of whiskey to fight off my demons.
Got a bankroll at Full Tilt to keep on playing, to keep the dream alive.
Got this old, battered backpack to get out into the big, wide world one of these days...
Anything's possible. Anything goes.
Don't need to know the odds,
I just go
Happy New Year!
How to simplify our lives? By avoiding the effort to get what we don't need, to simplify our mind by avoiding the constant repeating of the past and the attempt to imagine the future. The earthly pleasure seem very tempting at first, it seems to call for delight that it is all good and it is very easy to be drown to them. They bring superficial and temporary satisfaction, but slowly you understand they do not fulfull what was promised and they end with bitter realisation. Because we can not find the happiness within us we desperately seek it outside for example in objects, in experiences, travelling,...In short we drift away from happiness by looking for it where it is not. At it's most fundamental level, desire for modernity comes from the attraction of the unnecessaty. It eats up the spirit and interferes with it's peace. You multiply the needs instead of learning to live without them.
ReplyDeleteDifficulties and suffering are an integral part of life. We must not run from them or try to make tricks to overcome the darkness or painful side of life. A person who refuses to accept the suffering and looks only for the pleasures of life creates illusions which ultimately add grief and pain to the already existing suffering. Life is as dark as it is light. When we look deep into the suffering, while understanding that it is a integral part of life, we can see that the suffering also has it's positive sides and thourgh it we experience our lives as humans.
If you really want to find happiness in life, you wont find it by going to India, Thailand or the deep forests of Guatemala, that is only happiness on the surface...try to open your heart and help needy people so you can open your heart!
Thanks for your lengthy comment! Rock solid and very inspiring... I agree completely with everything you write. But knowing what is right is the easy part (in my humble opinion), it's acting righteous that is way too often a tricky proposition...
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