The Big Lottery

  I began this thread on the notion of finding a short story from my past.  Mainly because I feel the last few postings have been somewhat; deep, and I’d like to change topic to something more light-hearted, less, um, dire.

  While I was toying with that idea two things popped into my mind. One was how to choose from the many pieces I had affection for, even if like a bucktoothed goofy kid, there’s things to love about them, so it’s difficult to choose one over another.  Secondly I was churning the task of choosing would be a lot like a lottery. That led me to pondering the results of the recent drawing. Just this past weekend the Powerball lotto jackpot stretched past a half a billion dollars.  And I thought how winning that much money would be a life changer; then I modified it to winning any great amount would be a life changer.  

  Certainly winning that huge amount would like capsize any possible notion of keeping the life now known afloat; nope, everything would change, I’m saying so because it is those very minor things that keep us at our jobs; keep us feeling we must do this or that; prod us into believing all of those silly self imposed limiting living conditions are necessary to keep order in our world; with all that cash, that would instantly be changed.  Ya just didn’t have to suck up to the boss anymore to keep that delicate balance in check; you could speak your mind without fear of jeopardizing the stream of paychecks coming in.  Nope, those infinitesimal nagging bills would disappear without so much as a whimper; along with the knowledge there would be boat loads more where those dollars came from. That would arrest any conceivable economic threat short of purchasing one of the continental states, (including Texas). Welcome to the realm of ‘now what?’

  Oh we play, under the concept that you can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket.  In truth, we don’t spend milk money on the hope that a win will dig us out of our despair; some do. Yet, I’ve read where over 85% of jackpot winners are worse off five years after their wins.  Why would that be? Certainly there aren’t that many people who are that bad with money?  Well turns out, it’s not a case of stunted mathematics or arrested value systems as much as it is a case of lost valuation system.  You might notice efforts by Casino’s to practice that on its guest while they are there; it’s intentional disorientation; lack of the ordinary cues that would keep ordinary people behaving in, well, ordinary ways.  Take away the passage of time, and people will drift in some very odd ways. They will forget to get rest, eat or even drink, which will play havoc with rational thought processes in short order.   

Constant noise, lights will add to a conditional disorientation much like combat; that helps the casino dissolve the ‘guests’ natural awareness of their losses and value of dollars.  But never mind those corrupting skills and practices, they’re documented pretty well, yet people continue to descend on Casino’s throughout the world in droves; so the effect is not culture specific.  But the idea of a windfall does pretty much the same thing.  The winner quickly looses insight into the value of money; translated it means they forget the relationship of work to dollars.  Once that is accomplished then numbers of dollars are also meaningless.  I know when I sat down and really got my mind around what a million dollars was, then the rest of it, billions…and then trillions really took on a mountainous presence.  When someone gets that many of dollars dumped onto them they simply can’t place them in comparison to anything they know. 

  Once they gather up the final tally of the debt they owe and realize it’s a fraction of a fraction of what the interest of their winnings will earn….in a month…they lose their footing in their contrived existence.  We’re all very comfortable describing our limitations and can articulate them with reasonable detailed success.  Once those limitations are removed as the vast prairie of possibilities fill the horizon of real-life-choices; then comes the queasy feeling.  Most just can’t rise above their success; more so because it wasn’t earned.  And it’s been said, more times than I can cite the original author, but as of recent memory; ‘something given has no value.’ (Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein.) So be wary my friends of a windfall of cash; it can solve many petty complaints concerning lack, but it also whisks away familiar comforts in the same stroke; leaving most devastated by the task of constructing a life from scratch; most abandon the fortune, giving it away heedlessly even, in hopes that if they go broke, they could somehow get their old life back.

  So let me sum this up, I’m rapidly closing in on a thousand words and I try to keep my post down below that.  Think twice about wanting a change forced on you; our society calls that a calamity.  What makes life sweetest, is the disposition of gratitude ~ that renders the eternal delight of reward.