Playing for a living

A few weeks ago it occurred to me that I'm part of a pretty elite group in American society. What most people do for a living is called working. What I, along with rich and famous athletes and entertainers, do is called playing.

There are both similarities and differences between what I do and what athletes and entertainers do. The biggest difference is that what they do, they do for the entertainment of an audience, which pays directly (for tickets) or indirectly (in the higher cost of products advertised on television, for example) to see them at work. Audiences are willing to pay because these people are exceptionally talented and can do what very few other people can. And, they work in fields -- arts, entertainment and sports -- that are inherently interesting and aesthically pleasing to the masses.

I am not exceptionally talented, and very few people could distinguish what I do at a blackjack table or video poker machine from what the average ploppie is doing. I have been told that my overall approach to gambling and how I decide where, when and what to play would interest some people, but I know that the nuts and bolts of it would not.

One thing  I do have in common with athletes and entertainers is that what we do requires a lot of work and discipline even though it is called play. Maybe we call certain kinds of work "play" because we consider it inconsequential. I plead guilty to that, concerning what I do. And most of what most athletes and popular entertainers do is merely diversion, though as a society we spend exhorbitantly on it. Work is what we say is more important, even though we reward it less (teachers vs. baseball players).

Like most people, I have no exceptional talent in the arts or athletics. I can offer little of entertainment to others (except, I hope, my writing). But somehow I have fallen into the situation of having something in common with those who receive the worship of crowds -- even if it's only a word that's applied to what we, and few others, do for a living.