I haven't blogged in awhile, so I figured I would x-post some facebook rambling here. I think I ramble surprisingly eloquently, but if you don't want to read it, the gist of it is these poker changes are affecting me on very deep levels. I am calling into question not only the surface choices I have made regarding poker but how I interact with the world -- psychologically, emotionally, in every possible way, really.

At the very least, I am talking about things passionately again. Welcome back old friend.

I must speak, and I must speak a lot. It is boiling inside of me and I can't hold it in anymore. Based on what I know about other people I think that I have always experienced things more strongly than most people do. It goes both ways, it has its goods and its bads -- I have been known to be very depressed about things. There are things I think about that make me well up with tears. But there are things that make me inexplicably happy. There are songs I listen to or things that I think about that make me tear up with joy (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6gUK7niVFg). I like that I experience things so strongly. For me life wouldn't be worth living otherwise.

Everything I know and love was recently fucked in the ass by the DOJ. Every major poker site has been brought under indictment and is no longer servicing US customers, ergo I have no way to make money for the foreseeable future. This has extremely far-reaching effects for me.

Sure, it's partly about the money. And at first I thought that's all this would be about. I hate that I haven't secured my finances like I could. I know people that I talk poker with and play with that are secured for years and years. I never applied myself to get to that point, and I hate that.

More significantly, though, what this has done for me is that it has immediately called into question the last 6 years of my life. I am not religious, but poker has been my religion. It has been in my life implicitly for every second of every day of every week and every year for a very very long time. And now, immediately, without warning, that part of me is dead.

I know that it's bad for me to beat myself up over spilt milk, but I can't help it. That's how I am. I am extremely hard on myself and have always been. The thing that hurts the most is not the lost money. What I hate is the things I could have experienced but did not. I hate that I could have competed at an extremely high level. I hate that I could have had incredible battles for incredible amounts of money and did not. When I read stories about durrrr and jungleman playing heads-up for millions all I can think is "I can't wait to get there." It's that fucking EXPERIENCE. The experience of doing something exceptional. The experience of competing at a high level. The experience of doing something that stretches my limits and tests me and lets me know who I am. Federer-nadal. Bird-magic. These are the kinds of rivalries that push the human spirit farther than it has ever gone before. 13 billion years of chaos and entropy has led us to moments like these, and that's what makes them so exceptional. And I could have been a part of that. I could have pushed myself, I could have tested myself. I could have asked questions and stepped outside my comfort zone. I am reminded of the oblique strategy: "Go outside. Shut the door." I was terrified to even go outside, never mind any door talk.

And here is where the questions and the self-flagellation begin. I love competition. I love challenge. I love testing the limits of my will and my ability. And yet I have done none of that. For 6 years. It has always just been a thought in the back of my mind. Every day I wake up and say "tomorrow I can do it." And I never do. Never, ever, ever. Christ.

I realize now that this has been a driving force for me for a very long time. It's hard for me to put it into words. It's like, if I were religious and something went wrong I would be like "well it's OK, I can always just pray later." This thought, this idea, this concept of me one day succeeding at poker has suffused everything. For example, if I fail out of school (which I have been known to do) then that's OK because I have poker and I can really make it happen. If I need to buy something, it's ok because I will one day make plenty of money at poker. If I say I'm going to do something and then give up at it, then that's ok because I'm going to make poker happen. Almost every single thought I have had for the past 6 years has had that asterisk.

And now a massive part of myself that I have used as a crutch for so long has been utterly destroyed. For the first time in a long time, I feel fearful. Not anxious, and not scared, because to me those are just words that describe a pocket of our lives, some specific situation. What I'm feeling right now is completely expansive. I can't experience anything without thinking about it.

Like I said, I experience things more strongly than most people do, and most poker players I talk to aren't taking this as bad as I am, so I'm sure this is just a phase for me that I will work out eventually. For now, though, I feel horribly vulnerable.

I just thought of this. I think it encapsulates part of what I'm feeling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hW6Dm_m5t4. A video from richard alpert/ram dass talking about an acid trip where he sees all his "games" flying away. He has all t...he concepts about himself that he identifies with. Richard alpert the professor, richard alpert the intellectual, etc. etc., and during the trip they all get obliterated and he goes into a panic because he is afraid that he will cease to exist if all his games (i.e. identities) are destroyed.

Exactly how I feel right now. A huge part of how I viewed myself and how I interacted with the world is now dead. The concept of "drew the poker player" is gone, which is scary because that's been a comforting concept for so long now. It's even more scary because if that concept dies, then what's stopping every other concept I have about myself from dying? like alpert said, if they all die will I just cease to exist? What will be left?