You arrive into the world pink, naked and squalling. You are immediately in possession of a ‘hand’. The hand was dealt to you at birth or even earlier – at sperm and egg fusion. You had no choice in the deal, no control over the cards. You are black, white, yellow, red, or some other racial mixture. You have the genetic propensity to be smart or not, tall or short, fat or thin, strong or weak, sickly, or hale. Some of these factors can be overcome with effort; some of them are beyond your influence or perception (if severely retarded, you may not realize how handicapped you are). You are not a set of jokers or wild cards, but a set hand; the suits and denominations determined by the genetic material and womb conditions as contributed by your parents.
Beyond the intrinsic value of the ‘hand’ you are dealt, there is the ‘lay of the table’. You are born into an environment not of your choosing, around people with various ‘hands’. The cards around the table are randomly dealt to those people as well, just like the ones you are holding. You may be holding a pair of aces, but there are straights, flushes and full houses sitting in the seats around you. Conversely, you may be holding two pair and have the highest hand around. Your environment sets the bar of achievement and that is beyond your influence as well.
As you age, you can improve your position by ‘playing’ your hand. You can accumulate chips, which are the equivalent of wealth, power and influence. Or you can sit at the table and try to exist off the generosity of others. There is no re-deal, although, with considerable effort, you can improve your cards to some degree. This can allow you to more easily increase your chip count.
There is a set of rules at the poker tables that needs to be followed. Some of the rules have minor punishments. One punishment might be the loss of some of your chips. Other rules have much more serious consequences if broken. The breaking of the serious rules can result in meeting the one player that sits at every table and in every room. This player holds the highest hand of them all, and he never loses. Ever.
The player at all of the tables who never loses is called mortality. He is indiscriminate and ruthless. He is beating hands and cleaning people out at many tables, all at the same time. Sometimes entire rooms fall at once, in a single instant, the chips scattering around the room or disappearing with the losing hands.
So you sit and play and try to accumulate the most chips. And you try to win the most hands. You work at improving your position. Maybe you try and move to a higher-ranking table. You also try to develop your hand as much as you can to increase your chances. All the while, in the back of your mind, you realize that mortality is sitting at the table with you. And one day while you are trying to bluff another player by going ‘all-in’, mortality will call your bluff and win – every time.
-Noumenon
