Rat Races
March 8th, 2004
“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em,
Know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run.
You don’t count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table,
There’ll be time enough for countin’,
When the dealin’s done.”
Words to live by, though the song comes with a slightly darker message: No matter how well you do in life, the best you can do is break even, in fact the only thing you can do is break even. Given that, even if everything is transient, you can still have fun while doing it. Nothing is Permanent, Entropy will assert itself. This is what makes me think that all humans are actually engaged in two ratraces. The transient one: Trying to make the most of their lives to maintain an acceptable lifestyle and propagation of the species, and the spiritual one: To make sure that once you break even with the first rat race, you don’t lose the game that matters. Luckily, the latter one is a personal journey, so you’re not competing with anyone but yourself, and the only expectations you have to judge yourself by are those you set for yourself. The former one is the rough one, and unfortunately tends to make people lose track of the latter.
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