You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run.
Lyrics by Don Schlitz; sung by Kenny Rogers
You know we’re all gamblers, don’t you?
Utterly degenerate, dice-rollin’, pot-bettin’ sumbitches full of our own infallibility, twisting that damn throttle like our lives depend on it…because they kinda do.
Sure, that’s not all of us. There are some among us who play for matchsticks, like children. They risk nothing, so their reward is nothing.
The rest of us? Hell, we’re at the damn table, spitting on the dice, refusing to sit on 16 when the House is showing an ace, and winning. Most of the time.
Of course, the enjoyment is to be found in the very act of the gamble rather than the outcome. And the stakes are high. Make no mistake about that.
When you lose the bet you made in this game, you’re dead or maimed.
But that, to my mind, is the very finest game that can be played. It’s a gamble we’re all prepared to take.
And we gamble, like the degenerate swine we are, every time we go for a ride. We are gambling a car won’t lose its shit and slam into us. We are gambling there’s no surprise gravel or oil on the road around the next corner. We are gambling there’s no expensive European sedan with a uniformed granny-killer over the next rise. We’re gambling our tyres are up to what we’re asking. We’re gambling we don’t lose concentration for a nano-second, get distracted, and plough into a guardrail.
And we rachet the fucken odds up from time to time, precisely because we love the game so much, it makes us dizzy.
On a road you know, the odds are good when you haul open that throttle and dance the dance of our people. On roads you don’t know, the odds are maybe not so good. The Road Gods only know what surprise may await you around that perfect-looking bend you’ve just committed to.
Am I even fucken thinking about that as I commit? Fuck no. All the brain I have is focussed on what I’m doing. Should a surprise present itself, I’m betting I have the skill and reflexes to deal with it.
Is it a smart bet? I’m not sure there is such a thing. A bet, in and of itself, is made purely for the rush of the gamble. Sure, you may believe the odds are in your favour. Your skill-set is honed, the planets are aligned, and you’re in the zone.
But the Great Bookie reserves the right to change the odds at any time and without any notice. You know that. Of course you do. It’s what makes your nipples hard. You know it, but you never give it any thought, except maybe after you’ve survived. Trust me when I tell you I, like all of you, have had some quiet and very introspective moments after Death showed me his expectant face a few times. He did not take me on that day, but he reminded me of what the stakes of the gamble are.
Being reminded of what we already know is nice. But it’s always a passing consideration. I’ve yet to put a For Sale sign on the bike as it sits by the side of the road and catch an Uber home.
Because gambling is what I do. This is what we do. This is what makes us what we are. And it is no small thing.
And without it, life is not worth living. How can it be? Without risk there is no reward. Life is tasteless and meaningless – and you only have to look at the people who live these kinds of lives to understand why you do what you do, and why you live as you live and not as they live.
Because they do not really live. They merely exist. Like fucken pot-plants.
Roll the dice. Roll them terrible, wonderful and utterly pitiless bones.
I wish you all great odds.
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