Because Your Life Will Always Be Important, As Long As It's Important to You

As I enjoy my 61st year on this verdant orb we call home (albeit less verdant every day due to climate change as we suffer through what used to be August weather now in early June, especially in my back yard and especially in my herb garden which I really should water more frequently because there is nothing sadder than a wilting basil plant, which you really can't kill except by neglect, but somehow I do), I find myself dwelling on the past.

The title of this blog post is drawn from a commencement speech given this year at the University of North Dakota by Chuck Klosterman, a cultural observer I admire, and it sums up his belief that life has meaning to the extent that it means something to you.  Here's part of what he said:

In 50 years, no matter what you do and what you accomplish, there’s a very high probability that no one will remember and no one will care.

This is not a criticism of you or of anyone else. It’s just how history operates, and imagining otherwise is pure narcissism.

Like, there have been 12 Americans who have walked on the moon. Walked on the moon.

Yet I would guess most people here can’t name more than three; and that might be optimistic.

So the idea that what you do and the things you accomplish, you’re somehow going to live forever through the lives of other people, through your children, through their children, through books — you can believe that. But that’s not really how it works.

There are so many lost figures of the last century, from the 20th century, who did amazing things. And they’re just gone.

But there will be at least one person who will remember, and there will be at least one person who will care. And that person is you. You will remember and you will care.

The size of your reality is the size of your memory.

And the metaphysical essence of your life is how those memories make you feel.

So the key is having as many memories as possible.

Try to remember everything. Try to remember every detail of your life, even if it seems kind of unimportant. You know, you’re moving out of an apartment or a dorm now; remember what that place looked like. Remember who were the people you interacted with on a day-to-day basis. You’re going to have to get jobs, and you can remember those first days for a few weeks, and they might just dissolve; but try to hang on to them.

Because even if you’re the only person who remembers your life, it will be worth it. Because your life will always be important, as long as it’s important to you.

I'm not sure I agree with this - it's very much an egocentric view of the Meaning of Life that discounts the value of simply doing good for the duration of your life, even if it is not remembered in one or two generations from now, but I do like the idea of actively remembering and reflecting on your life as it is happening, because memories of those moments of happiness can be fleeting while your sadnesses linger too long.  This may be a survival instinct - we long remember our reversals so as not to repeat them, and we can't bask in our successes for long without losing our momentum for more - but in semi-retirement, selective memory is a good way to avoid regret.

So, here is a quick timeline of my life (minus actual years - figure it out for yourself!):

Syracuse NY - born

Webster NY - childhood

Lewisville TX - teen years

Austin TX - college and law school

Houston TX - work, marriage, marathons, children

Pearland TX - more work, serious poker and exercise, retirement

I have flirted with writing a memoir about my Lewisville years, a Catholic teen in the post-Vatican II years transplanted to live in suburban Texas amongst the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Church of Christ-ers.  I think it would be an interesting slice of Seventies life that does not feel compelled to reckon with drugs, sex, disco, or the death of the Sixties because I was either too young or too green or too awkward to have had encounters with those touchstones.  I was just a tall skinny doofus with a weird last name, Woody Allen glasses, and an unfortunate overbite, congregating in and out of church with other Northern Roman Catholic transplants.

But to mine those memories might require hypnosis and painful therapy, which I am not ready for yet (and may never be ready for).  

So instead I choose to remember ... and this is a poker blog ... some of my favorite poker moments.

In no particular order:

*    I got my first tournament win in the HRM group, outlasting Chuck G. (a really good player) in the dining room of Doug G.'s (no relation) house (a rare tournament hosted somewhere other than Jimmy G.'s (no relation) house).  I won by checking the nuts and letting Chuck bet into me, which is a pretty good strategy that almost never works.  Except that time.  I've won many times since, but it's never as sweet as that first win.

*   I won a big hand in my first Seniors Tournament in 2015 against a guy who was, until that moment, very friendly with me.  I took two-thirds of his chips on that hand (I don't remember what I had) and he was not long for the tournament thereafter.  

I didn't make it much further either that time because as the nice guys got felted, they were replaced by squinty-eyed hard men with large stacks of chips.  As my chips melted away, I eventually pushed all in with an ace-jack preflop and got three callers, never a good sign, and did not prevail.  

But I had that one moment, which like a lofted wedge to within one foot of the hole, gives you hope that the next time you play, it might be better.

*   I bluff out a world class poker player out of a giant pot in Day 2 of the Main Event.  Wearing headphones and sunglasses, I give away nothing to this guy and he eventually folds what was the winning hand.  As he throws his cards in the muck, I imagine Mike Sexton drawling, "Well, that was an amazing bit of chicanery there from the unknown out of Texas.  They grow poker players there, you know."

*    I finish eighth out of 1006 in a tournament in Durant, Oklahoma, losing with JJ to KK and taking home $6,911 from a $365 buy-in.  I survive some scary all-in hands to get to the final table and have no regrets about how it ended.  That's me there at the right.  Look at the giant stack I was playing with shortly before I finished.  They were going in the middle on any decent hand.

Briefly in ninth place, just ahead of Gorki Oliveira

*   I hit a flush on the river to triple up my stack in the Seniors Tournament and begin an epic run that ends a couple of days later with a win of $3,758 in a 218th place finish (out of 5916 players).  

When the river card gave me the flush, I hit the table with the flat of my right hand so hard that the chip stacks of everyone at the table fell over.  I've never reacted so expressively before or since that hand.

I don't play poker for the money.  Being a professional poker player would be soul-killing and stressful beyond anything I ever experienced as a lawyer.  Plus, I remain unsure how you would look back at your life and believe that you made a difference in the world fleecing tourists at the $5-10 table at the Bellagio.

I play poker for the friendships and the memories.  I hope to enjoy more of that next week.

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New investor, by the way.  My basketball buddy in Palacios has purchased 10% of my Super Seniors tournament.  As a genuine bourbon enthusiast, he will be referred to in this blog going forward as Old Weller.  If I win the Super Seniors, we will sip some William Larue Weller together, from a heavy crystal Baccarat tumbler, and reflect on all of the inevitable decisions that led us to that perfect moment.

Chat again soon.  Go make some memories!  As the song says, “I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass.”