Pain is the Ante

As my three children filed past me up the stairs I implored them, “Please! Do what you mother says . . . or there’s going to be a beating tonight!” And they just looked at me with those sad brown eyes, as if to say “Dear Father, we thank you for your kind nature, and your positive attitude, but we simply cannot fall asleep unless we’ve had a good beating!”

-Bill Cosby, Himself

If you want to experience Bill’s emotions as he futilely attempted to intervene in his wife and children’s tempestuous bed-time ritual, try telling a woman in love not to do something because “You’re going to get hurt.” Of course she’s going to get hurt; you know it, she knows it, he knows it.

Pain is the Ante of Love. You can’t play the game without putting hurt on the table. Play for peanuts and it’s not even a game, it’s just an exercise in probabilities – dull, pointless, dry. Only when the stakes are high do the juices start to flow.

Someone’s going to get hurt. Of course! Small time players swap little piles of hurt back and forth until the constant sting becomes too much. Passionate players bet wildly on weak cards – as thrilled to lose as to win. Eventually, we all play and the chips are always cashed even if it takes death to end the game.

Pain is a given, a sunk cost; forget about the chips. Play to win? “Count your money while you’re sitting at the table?” Play the odds? No. You play the man. Look, listen, feel. Connect across the gulf and read his hand from the way he blinks. Play for the thrill, play for the moment, play because there is nothing else. Bet it all just to see her eyes fill.