Adams Magic Poker

When I was 8 years old my grandfather on my father's side passed away. The second night after he died he appeared to me in a dream standing before a green chalkboard. It was the same green chalkboard that my father used while he was attending night school at at a junior college to learn requirements in the field of communications such as AM, FM and microwave formulations and electronic circuity and things of that nature. It was located on a wall in my parent's bedroom and it was the same chalkboard that my Dad used to teach me about basic electronic circuits and how to convert direct current into alternating current when I was in second grade.

What impressed me about my grandfather in the dream was how happy that he was. He was full of happiness and joy and he was exceedingly gleeful. He seemed to barely be able to contain himself. What he proceeded to do was to explain to me the particulars of matters pertaining to life and death. What seemed to characterize him the most was a complete absence of any form of regret or remorse. He had managed to live his life with hardly a single regret and it was obvious by his countenance and his entire demeanor. 

This dream as much or more than anything else that I have experienced in my life has served to shape, mold and characterize how I have lived my life from that point on and forward throughout the remainder of it. I wanted to be as happy as my grandfather was in that dream after that I die. Supposing that there is the possibility of an afterlife, and just in case it might matter I, decided to factor that in as a determining element in the decisions that I make and in everything that I do; and I have in everything that I have done and everything that I have been involved with. If I sense that there may be any form of regret that may be generated by any thought, action or activity that I may be presented with, I have always done everything that I can do to strenuously avoid it. 

What if it does matter how that we live, think and act and you have not factored that in as a possibility? When it wouldn't have been that much trouble to live, think and act differently in a way that would have eliminated the possibility having ended up with that circumstance. Wouldn't that be a bitch? 

I decided when I was 8 years old that it would be a small price to pay considering the outside chance that the way that I lived and the things that I do might have implications in the prospect of a possible afterlife. I wanted to have my bases covered. And I wanted that happiness.

But supposing that there might be a form of life after death, since we are sentient beings with definite supersensible constituents that are non physical and can not be physically described as being such, with 95% of the universe being said to be composed of imperceptible and undetectable dark matter, and though it might seem prudent to take that into account; how would I know what or what might not be something that I would regret from the point of view from a perspective and a point of view that I will have acquired after having died as I made and while I was making my way through life? I would somehow have to be able to successfully intuit what I would know and be privy to after having completely finished living my life long before I had gotten to that point.

It became a matter of intention. My intention from age 8 has been to live my life free of having any form of perceptible regret knowing what I would only know after my life has already ended.

I used my instincts, my intuition and my conscience to help guide me through my life and it has been my pattern in the manner in which I approach the things that I do in life and this is something that has been known only to me. It's personal. And I have been a real prick about it. I have never been concerned by or with the things that other people may do or might be doing or may wish for me to participate in. If I sense that I might regret doing something, I don't do it and I never have. It's the type of person that I am.

As far as I'm concerned, the mass consciousness and mass subconsciousness are irrelevant. As far as I'm concerned a chain link fence should be put around it all and it should be marked off as quarantined. I find myself quarantining more and more all of the time. I have more ha than the entire United States(RIP) put together.

The situation reminds me of 1 of the stories in 1 of Carlos Castaneda's books about a man in Mexico walking along a mountainous dirt road on the way to a place somewhere that he really didn't want to go to or that he really didn't want to be and a boulder on the mountain came lose and rolled down across the dirt road and killed him. The essence to the story was what an unnecessary shame that it was that he had to die doing something that he didn't even want to be doing in the 1st pace. Who knows if he had any other regrets. The story didn't say.

By the time that I was 4 years old I had concluded and come to the realization and the conclusion that mankind was hopelessly lost and was heading in the wrong direction and that nothing of any  import or lasting value was going to come of or happen during my time on earth. I therefore decided that I may as well just resolve to learn whatever little or how much that I could that might be considered to be of use. Something that I might take away from my experience on this planet.

It was at that time at age 4 that I remember looking at my father and thinking to myself: "I don't know about him, he's always having me do things that often seem crazy and difficult, but he has been around longer than I have and he knows how things work, so I will do everything that he asks of me and I will use him as a means to learn things that I might otherwise have to learn on my own". It was when I was 4 that he began requiring me to do 50 perfect military style push-ups and 100 deep knee bends every morning. I would learn from him the things that I considered to be of value and later on I would be able to disregard the rest.

He once pointed to an oval shaped green rug in our living room when I was 4 years old and told me to "sit on your lily pad". When I asked him if that is all that he wanted me to do and he said yes I remember smiling. This time the joke was on him; all that I had to do was sit there for 30 minutes. It was the easiest thing that he ever asked of me or required me to do.

By age 6 he bought me a power lawnmower and I was tasked with mowing both of our front and backyard lawns, along with all of the weeding necessary to keep our property looking immaculate.

I knew that the time would come when I would be old enough to leave home someday and be free of my parents ideals, wishes and dictates. What I did do was take things from both of them that I found useful.

Due to all of this and furthermore, if life were a game of poker, from age 30 I have been standing pat with a royal flush in diamonds.

I had no regrets, and I could have died at that point or any point thereafter and it really didn't matter. But since I was as I am still alive, and I may as well have, I have stayed the course and on target for my projected trajectory of ending and completing my life without a single regret. That has been, if any, my secret mission in life.

But if you have a winning hand in poker it is meaningless if no one bets against you. You have to sit there and hope against hope that for some reason that they will. If there is a small pot, you can't win anything. So it's always nice and a good thing when people in life have either doubted or bet against me and I have a way of getting them to do just that. It gets to the point where I could even show them my cards and they will still bet against me. It's psychological. It's a matter of their ego.

26 years ago I wrote an essay about this very subject. The tile was Adams Magic Poker.