Life is a card game

I keep making these analogies - not to make things different but to make them simpler. Life is so complicated, so immensely mysterious and than anything less complex if made to simulate it will make things easier to understand.

It can be thought as Chess - Where there are pieces (Resources or chances) that you develop and expect reactions from the opponent (Life or another competitor) and then their is the positioning of the pieces and what not.

I was thinking, how about cards? You have to guess what the others are holding? Where do you stand with respect to the players at hand? Then there is the environment that you are playing in - that can be thought as the cards that are on the table. What you have in hand is worth something only in tandem with what is there on the table. No card or skill or asset can be valued the same in all situations. So is life more like a card game?

If it was so, what should we learn from it?


Never show your hand? Yes maybe. This is one of the things that can be learnt from the card game. Never show your hand. Keep some of those cards up your sleeve. Some place where the other players won't suspect.

Leave the best for the last? Or should you? Why not open with the best card? Well you need something to get you out of trouble once you get into it and no matter what the trouble is you better be able to pull something out that will kick them all. Start with something solid, perhaps even something weak. Look carefully what the others are playing. What are the cards they playing? What are the cards they holding back? Look at their faces - What do they have? Friend of foe does not matter. Must have a knack to catch the 'tell' - the sign that the other is bluffing.

Know when to fold? The most important of them all maybe. To know when to stop and look elsewhere. To know when to cut your losses. To know when there is nothing more that can be gotten be striving away at whatever you are at. One must know when to hold and and when to fold. When to keep going with those puny cards that you have. When to fold even when you have Kings and Queens looking up at you. One must always know, or want to learn how to.

Bluffing? Well this world would be a better place if there was no deceit. But in a world where deceit is an ability on which you play - you better know how to bluff. You better know how to fend off those animals when they come growling to take away what is yours. All you are holding are a pair of twos but stare on hard at them. Show them the whites of your eyes. Tell them you have what it takes to take on them. Bring it on. And they will melt away into the darkness.
 Or, lure towards you the bully you know you can squeeze the beans out off. Play coy, play dumb. Don't let them know the cards you are holding. Spring the trap just when they let their guard down. That is the reward for being ever so vigilant and their punishment for thinking less of you. Know well when to use what and yes, know how to bluff.





That they all go back to the same deck? Something that is more apt with the chess set but can be borrowed for the card game as well. In Chess, after the game the king and the pawns all go back into the same box. In the card game they all return to the same deck. In the end they are all the same and even perhaps in the game - the one beats the king but may be beaten by the two.

If only life was that simple!! But if one remembers the directions....some games may very well be saved....even won!!

Later