Things Of Interest 5% Interest

         Well this is my second blog no one has read yet (surprise!) but i am not discouraged. Yet. But I do have some things to say. First a little background, I'm a poker player and have been for some time. I started out playing in the fake money games on one of the poker web sites. After some time playing I found out I was a fairly decent player but like most things I quit. Playing poker to me didn't really seem like a particularly good use of time and as I said I wasn't playing for real money yet so it seemed a little pointless. Then while I was going to college I got back into it, still playing for fake money and again I didn't stay with it long and after I graduated I moved back in with my parents as I didn't really have access to the internet so i couldn't play there. After I moved in with my sister I began playing again and i finally started playing for real money and found out i was actually pretty good, better than good really after what couldn't have been more than a week I took 5th in a $1 touranment winning $350 and after that I took my winnings up to $500 playing in cash games. I thought i was on my way to making a great deal of money when terrible things began to happen I lost hands where I was the favored by the percentages to win. Now this is part of poker like the saying goes "You can't win them all." But I started to lose constantly and great sums in about 1 month I lost all the money I won and swithed sites to the one i currently frequent (Pokerstars.net under the name Vicious Hit). Where i have been up and down coming very close to making the proverbial "Big Score". Now the reason for all this is I'd like to discuss something: Money. Money as they say is "What makes the world go round", which is understandable monitary systems have always ruled in society. Even in cultures that had none they were eventually brought into one, most times against their will. A prime example of this is the American Indian, (i'm not politicly correct because i don't care, not for lack of knowledge) they had a bartering system and as soon as the British came they were immediatly inducted into the system against their will. The question here is why does it go this way? It seems that a bartering system makes more sense, everyone has what they need and if you don't someone else does and more than likely you have something that they want. However if you look into history you'll find that any major society has some form of money i.e. Rome, Ancient China, etc. Only tribal societies use a barter system and yes they dont have skyscrapers or IPads but they seemed happy and they prospered not in the way we think of it but as i said they had what they needed. Now I'm not saying that we do away with money, I'm simply posing a question: Why the difference? I'm sure some of you are saying right now "Well thats a nice assumption, but tribal societies faught over all kinds of things land, food, water, etc.", I'm not saying they didn't but thats the word isn't it "faught". Yes they faught over those things but that is nature not greed they could not survive without those things, in any pack based animal community you will witness the exact same thing. What do societies with monitary systems fight over,? Anything and everything, and the word is not fight it's war, but what it boils down to is the ability to be able to say "It's mine!". Does having 12 200K+ cars get you any futher or make you happy? I know what most of you are thinking "Well no, but it sure would be nice!", which of course it would as I was typing this the very same statement floated through my mind. I can tell you right now if i became a multi-millionaire tomarrow I'd easily own 12 cars probably more and more than likely some would be worth a million plus. I love cars, I especially love fast cars I grew up around them the car i learned to drive stick in was 60's  Jaguar with a convertable top, my first car was a Mustang GT, before i hit 20 i had already done 150mph. But I've gotten off topic.

              My reason for this is I saw a documentary last night called "Lucky" it was about people who won the lottery for big money. Now some of the people were not overtly interesting they didnt really do anything with their money, the one man (a matheticion) even said that he would rather be working on some large equation (sorry don't remember the name math is not an interest of mine). This particular man gave me pause the man had won 5 million, which isn't a great deal of money in this day and age but it's enough so i had to wonder "Why aren't you doing that?". I mean my reason for playing poker is it's the only thing I'm truely good at that i have chance in making it in the world with, most of my other skills aren't what you would call marketable unless they make an alcoholic olympics or something of the like. My reason for wanting to be rich is there is just so much i want to do, so many things i want to experience, and see. If you have 5 million dollars and you're not doing what you want to do why buy the ticket in the first place? It would seem to me working on a math problem would not be a great expense, even a very hard one but once again math is not very interesting to me.

               The other two people who struck me were the couple and the old man, both of whom did very intersting this with their money and had very different experiences with some similarities. The couple, who I most realated to and i feel most others would too, as they ended up doing what most of us can only dream of, they won $110K. Now obviously that is alot of money, it's life changing money. They tried in the begining to just live their lives as they had before they didn't move and as far as I could tell the only real expense was a new car (Land Rover) and a trip to Vegas. As the documentry went on though it showed their friends and they (the friends) said that they were envious of their friends new found wealth. Later the wife of the couple said she felt disconnected from the world in which she lived in now, that things weren't the same anymore that her and her husband were no longer "a part of." Some people actually resented them for winning the money stating that "It should've been me." Now part of me finds this particularly astounding but once I thought about it I could see how something like that would fester and make you bitter. The husband said he had a friend of twenty years say "I can no longer stand the sight of you." Now because of all this they moved to Florida and started and new life where they live very comfortably in a large home with serveral nice cars. This bring me to the final winner that drew my attention the old man. He was a good man, he actually went into a burning building to save a small boy, another was in there but he couldn't get to him in time and he died. Shortly after he won $16 million and his troubles began. It didn't take him long to go completely broke, and now he lives in a shack at his place of employment. Inbetween that time time he was poisoned with arsenic and had a hitman sent after him. Both of these heinous attacks were perpetrated by his family, his own brother and sister. In the end he had to sleep with a gun under his pillow for fear of his life, but as i said he wound up losing it all and is in poor health. Some people told him it was gods way of rewarding him for saving the little boy, if that is so god is very cruel in my estimation. If anyone desevered to still be living the good life it was this man.

            In conclusion, money is good and it is bad, it can set you free or enslave you and make you a prisoner in your own life. I posed a question earlier: Why is there a difference between what we have in this society and the tribal societies of old? In truth, I honestly don't know, you would think people with enough money and power to make Soloman blush must be happy. The truth is though in my experience the more money people have the less happy they are. I remember when I was younger my dad told me a story about a man he knew, he said that the man had been the owner of his own buisiness and had a great deal of money but he left it all to go drive an 18-wheeler (which was my fathers profession before his accident). My dad said you could tell by just speaking to him that he was an incredibly smart man, and I had always wondered: why would you give up such a good life to go live a life, by outside comparison, that is dull and harsh? The answer is he wasn't happy, now was he happy driving truck? I don't know like I said I never personally met the man but I assume so. I think what has to be said here is do what you must to make yourself happy and if you make money along the way good, if not well...I guess thats up to you.

P.S. Should anyone want to play a poker game with me my handle is "Vicious Hit". I am also debating setting up a Facebook account at the very least I will be adding a pic to the blog so you can know what I look like. I will write again as soon as I have some more inspiration, I hope someone reads if not i think i'm just going to keep writing anyways. Oh and sorry for the cheesey ass tittle but i thought it was funny.


                                                 Thanks- Roy