Okay, so this blog might get a little deep. You should stop reading immediately if you are expecting me to talk about how badly I am crushing it this month, or any hand analysis.

I'm not really emo at all; in fact, I'm quite the opposite- detached, perhaps even aloof. Anyhow, for whatever reason, I find myself overanalyzing many things. I tend to think that I'm informed, intelligent, one of the few people who think about life on a different level. As with poker, I find myself always asking "why" to certain things in life. I'm not content knowing that it's correct to go to college (just as I would not be content knowing it's good to 3-bet 67s from the big blind to a button open without knowing ranges and postflop behavioral patterns), I'm much more interested in why I'm going, why it will better myself, and the benefits to not only myself, but to society (I'm not really a utilitarian, but bear with me).

So, in so many words, these are the conjectures that my friends and I have come up with (this will likely be a scattered essay, but as I think about the important things in life- grammar and sentence structure don't come to mind).

Most people in life are goal oriented. That is, we've all got goals of one kind or another. Long ago, people's goals were more simple and practical: make fire. make babies. make shelter. make rice. hunt for food. survive the natural disaster. We can all agree on those things. Everyone, to some extent, has some sort of goal in life. Long ago, those goals were probably so important they had very little time to think about other things. Some, say priests or prophets or whatever, were good at only thinking about those things. At some point they decided that was going to be their goal in life, or maybe some of them were just random hoaxes who wanted the attention. Either way, most people were intent on survival, a natural human instinct.

As society progressed, those challenges changed. People went from the simple working or ruling people to more free society thought. In more "free" societies, people were able to focus on capital gains. Since just about the beginning of the United States, aside from just gathering enough resources and money to provide for their families, people have (for the most part-- again, I'm making a lot of generalizations here, but when you're dealing with categorizing billions of people, I think that's okay) tried to gain as much as possible. Obviously, this becomes excessive, but that is what their goals changed to (personal wealth is an okay way to describe it, I suppose). In this case, it was for the betterment of themselves, their life, and their family. This was the reason for the beginning of a great nation, and this general capitalistic approach has helped society more than hindered it.

Today's society is not different. People are money hungry and greedy, which has led to the demise of our nation's economy, no doubt (but that is an entirely different blog, trust me). For the most part though, that drive for money is just a quest for individual success. But can anyone blame anyone else? There is an awful lot of emphasis and praise for individual success. I've become somewhat of a mini-celebrity even within the poker community because of how well I play a card game (and my keen sense of humor, obviously). Why would anyone not want this kind of success? I'm literally writing you as someone who is in the top 1% of their "field." Hell, there is almost no chance I'm not one of the top 10 HU and shorthanded NLHE players in the world, maybe top 5 or better. Unless you were a specific type of passive personality, the contacts and acquaintances you make, by and large (I never understood this phrase exactly, but it seems like it fits), are positive to your life and career. I've made some of my best friends from poker, no doubt. Since success is for the most part measured by wealth and possessions, since I was fairly young I had the idea that I never wanted to worry about money. Well, I've succeed. That brings me to my thesis.

Now that I've made money, I find myself constantly asking: What now? I'm not really worried about this, but there are dozens and maybe hundreds of people who have made a ridiculous amount of money from poker but aren't really the degen gambler types that set up shop in Vegas and spend their money on hookers and blow. This is unprecedented in history, a bunch of dorky teenagers and twenty-somethings are richer than they could ever imagine but find themselves increasingly bored with poker. Most turn to short term fixes like drugs or women, which is fine for all intents and purposes- life is what you make of it. I spend most of my time trying to figure out how I can better my tomorrow with my today. Don't get me wrong, I make mistakes and have plenty of lapses. After all, I'm human, and we have many fallacies. I know that tomorrow I'll regret having that milkshake from Steak n Shake at midnight tonight, but damnit that was a great 8 minutes of my life drinking it.

So after realizing that I'm looking for more in my life, I bring myself to the question: What is real? (can also be rephrased: what matters?) I've come to some pretty interesting answers, yet I'm still pretty indecisive about a lot of my conclusions (this is through many conversations with close friends as well, so I can't take all the credit).

Friends and family. Definitely the first thing I always think of. If you have nothing, be glad you have your friends and your family. Be glad they (hopefully) have their health. Pray for them and make sure to spend extra time with them, because the day that they die (I'm not talking about only elderly relatives, just anyone, even if they don't die for 50 years) you will wish you had spent more time with them. I think I see my parents enough, but I'm so bad about calling them just to talk. I wish I wanted to be back at home in NWI more, but I like it down in Indy an awful lot. Friends are what make life though, relationships, in any form, will create your persona whether you like it or not. There is no awesome person who has ****ty friends, it's just not possible. This point brings me to my next point...

Socialization. We, as human beings, are social creatures. Some people enjoy random fake social interactions, like banquets with people who donate to some random fund that they don't even know what it does but they donate because they get to come to a cool banquet if they do. Nevertheless, people enjoy the company of other people. Sometimes I'm bothered by random X group of people wanting to hang out, and I just want to tell them that I don't really like them. I'm not trying to belittle someone, but there are certain people that you don't get along with for whatever reason, or you're very bored by their presence. Don't spend a moment with these people that you don't have to, negative energy can really be a *****. I can't think of a single more real thing, a single time I feel more alive, than sitting around in Steak n Shake at 2am with old friends talking about ridiculous stories from back in the day. I have had almost all of my best laughs in Steak n Shake. Which brings me to my next point....

Entertainment. This is a very feeble thing, to be entertained, to laugh, to scream, to be so caught up in something that your mind isn't wandering to anything else. Sometimes it's as simple as watching a movie or listening to a song; you get so engrossed in it you get wrapped up in emotion. I feel the same way about actually entertaining-- making people laugh has to be the best feeling in the whole world. That leads me into my next point...

Kindness. I've got a very smart friend who says very smart things and she told me that the only thing that mattered in life was kindness to another human being. I thought it was sort of B.S. at first (well, not really B.S., but more or less just an over simplification), but the more I think about it the more I realize that all the things that I've previously said, and anything that I will say, comes down to that. As people, we feed off of energy, and sometimes little random acts of kindness are the only thing that gets us through difficult days. I know that there were times I dropped a big 50-dime-ball on the day, but when I went to Chipotle a random middle aged woman would open the door for me and smile at me and I'd think to myself, "It simply doesn't matter that I just lost fifty thousand dollars, because that cougar opening the door for me made my day." Okay, maybe overreaction on the cougar part but you get the idea. I'm still slightly undecided on this one, but I'm getting more convinced every day.

I'm still kind of working on further results, but I think all those things can be compressed into the fact that we need to find people that make us endlessly happy. Maybe all of that comes down to our need to find a suitable mate and reproduce, or maybe it's more complex than that.

Either way, that's all I'm going to write on the topic for the moment. I'm definitely, without a doubt, thinking way too hard. It kind of tilts me that I'm approaching this in such a scientific way. For now, I'm going to allow myself to be fooled by the small stuff, because it's quite enjoyable most of the time. I wouldn't say I'm going to bake brownies and watch Desperate Housewives, but you just never know.

I'll try to have my next blog be about poker or the Bently I want to buy instead of this garbage.