One Thing If You're Lucky

The One Thing - INXS (mp3)
Best Days - Graham Colton (mp3)

This summer I breezed my way through the latest Malcolm Gladwell infotainment, Outliers. If you haven't read a Gladwell book -- The Tipping Point, Blink, or this one -- I highly recommend you give one a try. Although I think they're overrated as tools of learning, they earn their keep on making what might otherwise be a little dry excessively readable and sticky.

Gladwell is the master of anecdote. He uses more person-specific stories than Reagan and Clinton used in their State Of The Union speeches. Once in a while he even throws a small grain of research at you.

His latest, which is yet again wildly successful, is perhaps his most ingenious. The Tipping Point was probably his most studious and, for me at least, the most compelling, but what it missed was a human connection. It missed the What does this mean for ME? vibe.

But Blink and Outliers are both crafted to serve as an excuse for the masses. Each book absolves us of particular weaknesses and shortcomings.

Blink explains why we're so judgmental and actually suggests that our snap judgments have evolutionary significance and are, more often than not, accurate. In other words, it tries to make us feel better about trusting our instincts, because who needs books and education and wisdom, and who has the time to ponder or consider or reflect? At its extreme, it also even provides us an unintended excuse for our own prejudices and biases. (No, Gladwell doesn't remotely condone this, but it doesn't matter, because when you write for the masses, you're writing for many people happy to draw conclusions you didn't intend.)

Outliers, on the other hand, basically lays out a soothing balm for the bungled and the botched, as Nietsche called us. We're not bungled and botched because we're losers, Gladwell asserts, but rather because we just weren't in the right place at the right time. His point has plenty of merit, but I wonder if the book is so popular because it helps let us off the hook a little.

One of Gladwell's key assertions is that, in order to gain mastery in something, one must have practiced or worked on it for more than 10,000 hours. Success requires more than just this investment of time, but without it, mastery at the highest levels is almost impossible.

So I asked myself, what talents or hobbies or gifts in my life can I even come close to saying, "I've spent 10,000 hours practicing/doing that"? The results are pretty darn limited.\

• Reading. I'm quite certain I've spent 10,000 hours of my life reading high-end articles, novels, books.
• Watching TV or movies. Hell, I might have piled up 10,000 hours of each by now. This... troubles me a little, although what's the point in letting it trouble me now? Might as well shoot for 20,000!
• Writing. Seven or eight journals filled front to back. Two very under-the-radar blogs before this one, each lasting well over a year, with things being posted three or four times a week. Creative writing classes throughout college. 
• Poker. I started playing poker online for money -- very small stakes, trust me -- after I read the book Positively Fifth Street back in early 2004. Although I'm nowhere close to 10,000 hours, I'm probably past the 2,000-hour mark. And, as most experts will tell you, playing poker online might have some flaws, but it also accellerates your learning curve.

I'm not aware of any kick-ass professions that center around just reading -- especially for readers who are as slow and plodding with it as I can be -- and critics of all sorts are losing their newspaper jobs left and right, so watching movies and TV shows ain't gonna rocket me into the Superior category.

As for writing, I'm workin' on it. I've found me this delectable little blog thing to feed my dependence. I keep plugging slowly but surely away on something that wants terribly to be a novel if I can nurture it properly. And I write a ton for my actual job, although I don't think anyone's ever going to refer to me as "The Tiger Woods of Independent School Marketing."

So that leaves poker.

I'm pretty good. In fact, when I'm around people who won't take it as penis-dangling bravado, I'll even admit to thinking I could be very good. As you read this, I'm taking the biggest and boldest step yet to find out whether I might be right or totally fooling myself. I'm in Tunica, playing in a series of tournaments known as the World Poker Open.

The rub -- and anyone who loves Shakespeare knows there's always a rub -- is that it's damned expensive to find out how good you are at poker. Yet I chafe at spending more than $15 on a nice meal. In fact, I picture sitting at a table with $300 in chips, hearing someone say "I'm all in," and vomiting all over everything at the thought that I could lose all of that money in mere seconds. ("$300 is, like, two years' worth of music purchases!! And it could all go away by calling!")

So wish me luck. Yes, poker is about skill AND luck, and great players need plenty of both. Either way, one mere weekend of winning or losing more money than I'm used to would only be the start if I wanted to be really really good. Either way, I have no illusions I'll be quitting my day job (or blog) anytime soon.