Poker Face

Despite losing, I usually walk away from the table laughing.  I’ve never taken poker seriously.  Also, I’m probably a bit drunk.  Would it be better if I walked away with a little extra cash in my pocket?  Life is always better when you have a little extra cash in your pocket.  But I had fun.  Thus, I’m happy.

I’ve heard both novice comics and veterans in game compare comics to gamblers.  This is because it takes a really long time to get anywhere in comedy, and lot of hard work, often times sacrificing relationships and potentially lucrative jobs.  I’ve never been the gambling type.  I guess this is because I’ve always had to work hard for what little I have.  I get pissed off if I throw a nickel into a fountain and my wish doesn’t come true.  Since I started doing comedy at the age of 20, I’ve spent the better part of my young adulthood writing and performing, trying to get better.  Am I gambling?  Are my chips my youth?  My so-called “prime” years?  I don’t think this is a particularly healthy way of looking at how you spend your time, but it might be worth considering.

I’ve been dealt a pretty good hand from the start.  Born to a loving but weird middle class family, with good genes, and an above average intelligence level, I already had it better than most.  I wouldn’t realize this until later in my life, however.  I played it pretty safe to start.  Did well in school.  Kept quiet (mostly because of social anxiety, and the mere fact I was always a bit of an asshole).  On the outside, I was your all-American, model youth.  College bound with a bright future.  Inside, I was extremely unstable.  This came out in short lived self-destructive episodes, and panic attacks which occurred on the regular.

I didn’t learn that severe depression runs in my family until recent years, and  for a long time I had seen depression as something weak minded people suffered from.  So when I felt like throwing in my cards and giving up playing anything at all, it built up a certain rage against myself.  Anxiety worsened.  I looked forward to drinking or getting high more than anything else.  Knowing I had a good hand made it worse.  Why would you be so angry if life give you a Flush?  Why would you want to give that up?

There’s both a simple and complicated answer.  But the simple answer was so simple, it was almost incomprehensible to me in my teens: I was bored.  Boredom breeds apathy, and I just couldn’t stand it.  I couldn’t stand school, or my inevitable bland future.  Apathy is depression’s best friend.  There’s a distinct difference between sadness and depression.  Sadness sucks, but it’s a healthy emotion (please see Pixar’s Inside Out, that movie is so important), and it comes and goes throughout your life if you’ve gone through a break up, or if someone passes.  Depression is sadness on steroids, because it numbs what made you once feel happiness, and distorts positive emotions into anger, making one distrustful of their own memories, and people who care for them.

Before I started comedy, I was in a strange place of denying depression and furiously holding onto the delusion that I was in control of my ever rickety emotions.  I desperately wanted to fold.  Luckily, I had the wherewithal to understand two things: this feeling was temporary, and being so young I had the power to determine a future where I wouldn’t always feel this way.  Even at 18 or 19, I’d seen enough smart and talented kids throw their lives away, and I didn’t want to be one of them.

When I started doing comedy, I saw everything else as a waste of time.  College, parties, dating, useful skills in the work force… none of that mattered anymore.  Whatever poker table I was at, I left it, happily.  I joined a new table, but I’d soon learn that even a good hand would most likely fail here.  And some of those in the game, with TV credits, and chips stacked high, were sorely miserable at this table.  Excitement, fear, uncertainty… these were the regular emotions at this table.  But the winnings were big.  And I wanted that.

At this point, I’ve spent most of my 20’s at this table.  How I’m doing depends on one’s perspective.  Some people think I’m doing incredibly well.  Some think I suck.  Objectively, I’m doing fine.  Not great, but not bad.

“Might as well give it a go while you’re young,” or some variation of this statement is something I’ve heard from people I’ve known my whole life and strangers after shows.  That’s almost as bad as asking what my “plan B” is.  I’ve only one plan.  And it’s to put everything on this table.  I’ll bet it all on the one thing I have to most control over: Me.  I’ve tanked relationships.  Turned down lucrative jobs.  But it’s not really a risk if I know safety is not safe for me at all.  There’s no such thing as safety for those who think the rules are fucking bullshit.  There’s no safety for people will believe the game more about excitement than winning.

If I fold…  If I run out of chips, or simply become bored.  If poker becomes Russian Roulette, and if I never really win, and I walk away with nothing, bitter and angry, like how I was before, and if you ask me if it’s worth it, I’ll be broken but I’ll smile, because for me, the high risk games, the ones with the most heart break and excitement, are the only ones worth being in… win or lose.