An Essay.

PLAYING POKER ON TRAINS

I am told, that a mathematician, once worked out that we could ‘all’ have a house by the sea. He worked out, the total mileage of all the coastline for every piece of land on this globe, and figured we could all have a detached house, and live by the sea. ‘Wonderful’ I thought, for as it stands today, most people are living on top of each other in conditions that are causing problems to our very existence. We’re all passing on colds, we’re all passing on maladies including social problems of integration. And I even add, that perhaps some of us, are dreaming each-others dreams as we sleep with our head, only two feet away from our neighbours head. Now there, be a hint at something that not all can entertain, can envisage from happening yet, we ‘all’ get an inkling of something more than the five senses that we are taught exist. I mention teachings, but, being honest, we’re not taught a great deal at all. For if ever we were granted the freedom to build our own house on the coastline, many, would not know how best to pitch their property, and what to gauge such as water table and drainage when building their house. Indeed, if that house was built, so dumbed are we now, we perhaps would not know how to tend to a garden – to grow our own food. I mention earlier - ‘freedom!’ But we are not free. How many people can truly say they are free? You see, it’s dawning on me, that this human experience, (including my own experience) in essence; be an indoctrination on how to follow other peoples rules and norms. I suppose some people are grinning, clearly waiting for the mistake to happen in this piece, waiting for something they can pounce upon and disagree with. Well, before you do, just ask yourself when was the last time you truly did something that actualizes your own freedom? We all have one life. Some of us, are growing families of our own having left the home where you once grew. Most, are finding it difficult though, as they come to terms with a life that seems to all intents and purposes; keen to put one down. We all have one life, seven billion of us to be precise owning just one life. None asked to be born upon this globe. We find ourselves a species where we ourselves be the self-propellant engine we look one day to build. We are the engine that keeps humanity on this world – growing; seven billion of us, born to a set of conditions that had we known about, most would not engage with. What we clearly understand, is that had we known all about this world beforehand ‘and’ had choice in whether to come here, we would choose not to. Some people are still grinning, following this train of thought and not really acknowledging what I am trying to relay to you. And that is this, many are so dumbed down now by established methods, that they haven’t engaged the very real thought; that in being born here, we have entered a world where the cards have been dealt before you have reached the table. What you are living, is the hand given to you by a dealer. The dealer, or banker for want of better words, has placed upon the table a long time before you got here, the cards with which you play. And here’s the skinny, you are forced to play those cards. You cannot ask for another set and be reborn so to speak, you have no choice but to play those cards. For some, they would argue that you make the most of the hand that has been dealt but here, for those that think just so, you’re still not getting the real picture. You’re looking at your hand and your gauging whether to bluff (if it’s a poor hand), or sit back and poker face if it’s a good hand. And if it’s the best hand anyone can get, you may even want to challenge the banker and take all he has. Yet I beg of you, you’re still not seeing the bigger picture. You can play any game you choose and the dealer will deal the cards for you, but for the majority of people, they have no choice but to play the game set before them. But here’s the real skinny in all of this. These rules, values, norms of daily living no matter which society you are in; be the fifty-two cards you play with. The game itself be the life you have before you, yet, the game has already been cast a long time before you entered this realm. The rules were laid out a long time before you got here. Everything from the felt on the table, to the four suits you play with, has all been thought out before you even got to the table. The rules of the game be someone else’s rules! You’re not allowed to really challenge how the game is played. You cannot introduce more suits than the usual four, even the design on the back of each card has been set out a long time before you arrived at the table. In the main, many, play the game set without realizing just how ‘bogus’ the game really be. For at the least, we cannot affect change to any great extent, on the very structure of the game you play, as it has all been thought out before you arrived at the table. We can voice our concerns about how unfair the game is, but there, the majority will just be chaperoned away from the table and be incarcerated for not playing by the rules written a long time before you arrived. In essence, for the majority of peoples of this world, you’re born, you get on a train, you are lead to believe you’re going somewhere, but all you are really doing, is letting the train tracks dictate where exactly you go. Like the game you play at the table, it is pre-ordained, it is pre-determined just exactly where you go on this world. Because in both analogies, the tracks and the game at the table, have been laid before you arrived. In truth, there is not a great deal we can really do about this state of play that has been suspiciously ‘rigged’ before we came here. There is one thing though, in both the train, and the game at the table, there be a driver and a banker in both analogies. Many try to guess the make-up of this being, try to gauge just exactly whom he be when life be so cruel. Given all the attributes and history of this game, my guess is, the banker, the driver too, one and the same; be as bogus as the game you’re dictated to play. Most, are not happy with this world, the banker is beginning to realize this, he may have known about this from many moons ago, and in knowing this, we suspect the virtue of the game and the banker himself. In essence we are beginning to understand that in this realm, the inventors of this game be as bogus as five aces in any one pack. So what can we do? We each realize in time we are playing someone else’s game. We’re riding on tracks laid before we got here, and we know the World and the game be unfair. In simple truth, we have no choice in all of this. Once you are born, you are here until you leave the table broken, or depart from the tracks at the pre-ordained destination built a long time before you came here. Maybe, if you are grinning still, you have made a bargain with ‘the cheat’ himself. If so, that be your choice, for me, and many, I’ll not want of coming here again, to play by rules corrupted a long time ago. If many gather around the table, and throw the hand back at the banker, we may still invoke the change needed in our societies, but until then, you can bet your bottom dollar, the banker, doesn’t want to change one jot of the game he designed, after all, he’s making a mint in human souls.

Michael J Waite 10th December 2013.