#228: “The Man Who Mistook His Life For A Game”
In ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat’, Oliver Sacks presented to the world the case of Dr. P, a man whose visual agnosia meant he could only focus on one individual feature of someone’s face. “His eyes would dart from one thing to another, picking up tiny features, individual features, as they had done with my face. A striking brightness, a colour, a shape would arrest his attention and elicit comment—but in no case did he get the scene-as-a-whole. He failed to see the whole, seeing only details, which he spotted like blips on a radar screen. He never entered into relation with the picture as a whole—never faced, so to speak, its physiognomy. He had no sense whatever of a landscape or scene.” The story goes that when Dr. P saw his wife, he focused on the top of her head, and not her head as a whole, which led to him thinking that he was looking at a hat stand.
I often think that some poker players, myself included, have a particular type of visual agnosia. Not for faces, mind you. Ours is a sort of tunnel-vision, a narrowing of the ocular spectrum, an inability to recognise the true objectives. In the game of PokerPro2015 on the Super Nintendo or whatever console the cool kids are using today, the actual game of poker is only a small part. Of course, it’s a very important part but it is just one component, one facet of a multi-faceted game which requires you to treat what you do as a business. Running a shop is not just about the transactions at the till. It’s about choosing your location and opening hours, selecting the brands you will carry and keeping the shelves stocked. Similarly, the poker pro chooses his card-room and hours of work, he selects his game type and stakes. Success for both will hugely depend on these decisions.
Poker is tougher now than ever before. It used to be a game of aggression and brute force, of high c-bet percentages and barreling. Now it’s a game of mathematical exactitude and equilibrium, of calibrated betting frequencies and precise sizings. Balance is key, both on and off the table. If you’re lucky enough to make money from the game, use that money to make your life better. Don’t blow it on stupid shit. Spend it on something or someone you love. Respect that money because it being in your pocket means someone else had to lose it. Try your best not to lose sight of the bigger picture. Recognise the scene-as-a-whole. Don’t be the man who mistook his life for a game.
The “poet laureate of contemporary medicine”, as he was so fittingly called in the New York Times, Oliver Sacks just found out that he is dying. For the man who spent his life exploring the mysterious, complex and extraordinary things that happen inside our heads, a man whose clinical work has inspired films, documentaries, stage plays and an opera, death now looms. His cancer has returned and the likelihood is he has mere months to live. In a beautiful op-ed entitled, ‘My Own Life’, Sacks reflected on his life and the time he has left. His words were both poignant and heartening:
“Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life. On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well). I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential.”