09122011

Turn // Fold

When you sit down at the poker table of life you always start out with a 2 and a 7 in your hand. Life never deals good cards whether you like it or not. You can be born with a platinum MasterCard in your mouth but your cards are most likely as good as the cards of the kid from Cameroun sitting next to you with worms inside his round belly. Half of the time the people with too much silver on their plates end up eating it all, wasting their chance of winning by grumbling with a stomach ache. The five cards, unfolded, at the center of the carpet-green table can be anything you hope for but not anything you want. After all, only life has the ability to grant surprises.

Some people think that life, the dealer itself, is bluffing with a wide grin on its face. These people live inside a movie, conspiring and turning every event in the world into a conspiracy. They have no truth in their lives, no honesty. To them every passer-by, every man sitting at the table, is a cheater - and a lousy one at that. They are, after all, always more intelligent than the others.

Others are bluffing endlessly because for them, what is life anyways but a game? They have no use for a truth in their lives because living amidst lies is a web from which there is no escape. A spider spinning itself into a white, webby cocoon.

For some, life grins at - not greedily, not symphatetically either. Life knows that those people will end up taking bluffs from the constant liers and getting into arguments with the conspiracy-theorists. What life also knows is that through these hardships these people will end up taking the red chips to the counter at the end of the night.

Who are the most experienced players of the three groups? The ones with the intellect to outsmart, the ones with the cunning to outplay, or the ones with the wisdom outlast?

Life is not a game, he's the dealer. And everyone knows that the casino always takes it all.