Just this last January I found myself staying at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, I was there to play tournament poker for four days in the Moose International Series.
Why, prey tell, you may be asking yourself, are you writing about poker here? Don't you have a poker blog? It's true - I do have a blog that's almost as old as this one, and it's right here and it's a very nice summary of my amateur poker career and aspirations.
But this story, though it is set in the poker world, really has much less to do with the game on the felt and a lot more to do with that super extra exciting game called life.
I was probably halfway through my trip - I had busted out of the Moose Main Event and I was playing a smaller tournament, trying to recoup my losses.
The tournament was long and grueling, and there was a chatty guy at the table. Not really in the mood for prolonged conversation, and also trying to play patient and not get bored and get in trouble playing marginal hands, I popped in the ear buds and fired up a podcast by Ben Shapiro.
Ben is a conservative firebrand of sorts, but he's also my favorite of the fairly far right gang. He's not a screamer or prone to hyperbole - he's a genuine intellectual juggernaut who puts his considerable brain power to work dismantling the far left.
At some point someone, it may have been the chatty guy, started talking to me. I couldn't hear him, so I pulled out an ear bud. "Sorry, I couldn't hear what was that?" And we had a bit of small talk, and it was friendly and genuine and it carried on a little bit.
At some point I mentioned, "Yeah I don't mean to be anti-social with the ear buds, but I'm trying to stay patient and keep out of trouble.." "Watcha listening to?" chirped the dealer. She was a bright and chipper little thing named Nicky. Probably 25 years younger than me. I'd played with her dealing before and she was definitely in the top tier of the overall mostly very good Nugget dealers.
Now if you play poker on the regular, you know that a chatty dealer is generally a very bad thing. Nicky was generally not that chatty, although super friendly. So I was happy to answer, knowing she was very unlikely to follow up with another question. Incidentally, this entire conversation she was shuffling, then dealing, not stopping or slowing at all.
"Oh it's just a podcast."
(Shuffling) "What kind of podcast?" This was a follow up question! Gulp!
"Uh... I'd rather not say, it's political"
(As she pitches the cards) "Why not?"
"Uh... well people get uncomfortable."
(She finishes pitching cards, stops and looks right at me). "Good. People should be uncomfortable, because we need to have these conversations."
I was agape. Nicky then turned to the player who was first to act and indicated him to go. She was done talking, she had to do her job and move the game along. But she had dropped the hammer, and the fellow on my immediate left couldn't help himself... he said -
"Yeah, I'm done with not saying anything. Look where it's got us. I listen to Steve Bannon's podcast, so that will give you an idea of where I'm at. But I don't give a shit what people think and I'm not staying quiet ever again."
I didn't have anything really to say to these impressive people. I just nodded and smiled, but it was a profound moment and I let it sink in.
Interestingly, Nicky didn't add anything else to the conversation, as it was pretty much over, and she hadn't indicated her politics or her views on social issues - but she didn't have to. Just by virtue of her statement "People should be uncomfortable" I knew exactly where she stood on topics that matter.
I think this moment was the beginning of the promise to myself to not stay silent on issues that matter to me.
Up until this revelation, I've really tried to stay quiet most of the time. I have also failed many times. In speaking out on rare occasion I may have already damaged my long term career goals, I may have set myself up to be held at arms length by a good amount of people anyways. So really, why keep trying to stay quiet? This truth, plus that Nicky, and the gruff fellow to my left at that table were both absolutely right and inspiring - it's left me determined to go forward living as they do.
Now I'm not saying I'm going to go out of my way to be confrontational - getting in people's faces and such. I'm still a big believer in the axiom "Preach the Gospel as much as you can and when necessary use words." Meaning - live by example, and only be direct when you have to.
But if there's something right in front of me that isn't right, I'm going to let it be known that I'm not good with it. Period.
There's not a good reason to hurt feelings just for the sake of hurting feelings - but there's plenty of good reasons to speak out for what's right, even if it happens to hurt feelings.
Nicky was right - we have to have these conversations.
The fellow on my direct left was right - nothing good has come from staying quiet.
So I'm not going to.
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