Risk and Rewards

I’m laughing to myself this morning. It’s this blog thing. I just started it yesterday and it had some hits. I’m not even sure how one would’ve found it. I guess I could hit the Apache server logs and get an idea of whom it might be, but I’m not THAT interested. Anyway, I guess I have to proofread what I write from now on…and I guess this won’t be therapeutic in the way I once thought it would be. Little matter.

Gambling

I’ve been hearing the GoldenPalace.com commercials on Stern, so last night I browsed there and downloaded their software. It lets you play with pretend money, if you’d like, but there’s constant nags appropriately timed to coincide with moments that you hit a jackpot telling you that you could be playing with real money. I wasn’t, although I have no hesitation about doing so on occasion. Dangerous stuff, like juggling old dynamite. Dangerous as it is, I think there is value in playing in this domain.

The gambling environment is a model environment for the World of Risks and Rewards. Granted, it’s a warped model, with everything skewed to steer you from rational action and every effort made to stir up some really negative human attributes, like greed, envy, and gluttony. That said, it lets one play with risk and reward in an accelerated way. In this model, if you are one that can remain in control, you will begin see to how chance works. You begin to understand randomness and what it means to have the cards against you (literally). It is here that you will take deep into your soul the truth that there are no rewards without risk. Those who risk nothing receive no rewards.

I think that herein lies the answer to my Day One question on the education of the hopeless. Not to bring them to the casino or lead them to the lottery counter, for you’ll already find them there and that works for very few. (Because the reward is not commensurate with the risk, so in the long term the risker always loses his reward.) The risk they take must be calculated. The routine must be broken. To use the Mike Foley metaphor, the autopilot must be disengaged and the course of their lives driven by yoke and compass. (I must stop saying “must” so much when I write. ;))