I Won The Lottery

So, some guy in Florida won $600 Million from PowerBall ($375 million taking the lump some prize, $180 million or so after taxes).

Lucky bastard.

Sort of, anyway.

A winning lottery ticket is much more akin to the Ring of Power than the Holy Grail. We all like to think its some sort of one way ticket to easy street, yet every time the country goes lotto crazy, some website or other takes great pleasure in showing how sudden influxes of wealth can ruin your life. Just like the fact that you swallow seven spiders a year (which isn’t true) and that ‘penultimate’ sounds more intense than ‘ultimate’ (its actually one less), it’s a guarantee that even when you lose the lottery you can take some solace in the old adage that mo’ money means mo’ problems.

Then why do we play? If we know about the consequences, well established for many years now, why do people play out the lottery in record numbers? The simple answer needs no explanation: being rich seems very appealing, especially when you don’t have to earn it. It’s the new American dream, wealth and privilege for nothing.

But I don’t want to focus on the simple explanation for why we play the lottery. A much more fun complex reason to play is right next to it.

We play for the fantasy.

When we’re kids, life is about imagination. We don’t understand the world around us and must draw conclusions based on our limited input. We extrapolate and invent worlds and universes the exist just out of our reach but will some day await us. Whether entitled children of privilege who expect the world handed to them or desperate street urchins just starting to learn to fight and scrape for every gain, what we don’t know, don’t have, and can’t wait to see fuels our upbringing. Our fantasy is our reality. Perhaps we do not live the dream at the moment but the ending is never in doubt. Each of us is a unique individual, special and smiled upon from on high, just waiting for the earth to recognize our greatness and reward us the reality we already new to be true.

Then we grow.

We learn. We understand.

Suddenly, fantasy has structure. Where boundless imagination once stretched to the horizon, the line where the sea meets the sky gets a little closer. It might still be miles away, but now there isn’t as much room to fill it. We meet more people with more gifts more adept at filling that magical role we had set aside for ourselves. Age starts to creep up with fearsome persistence, and that career in the pros starts to lap us on the track. Our mentors stop admiring our potential and start expecting results. Our peers aren’t as interested in winning our war against the world so long as there’s a piece of the pie left for their new family.

The fantasy shrinks further. Reality becomes our reality. Our limitations are concrete, their work-arounds existent though arduous. We keep our eyes on the future but have to squint through the translucence of the present. Those beautiful images we colored in as children become amorphous blocks, clouds of promise whose shape move when we look at them and disappear when we reach out to touch. Imagination gives way to goal orientation. We speculate on the probabilities of success and work out the details of how much success should be allocated where. We’re not looking to live dreams, but realize realities based on the criteria we have established over many years.

We desire what we can achieve. We chase what we can catch. The fantasy is alive, but regimented. Computed, structured, and evaluated. Not so much a dream but a vauge instruction manual for a possible happiness. We don’t know, we can only hope.

Then, we buy a ticket.

And for two dollars, you buy back your fantasy.

In our age, we know all the things working against our goals, so what happens when all those things melt away? What happens when the freedom from all we’ve been beaten down by no longer applies to us?

Everyone has an equal chance to win. Why not you? Why not me?

We get those numbers and our visions come back to us. However delicious that steak was that one time, now we can have two of them everyday. That one girl wearing the dress that looked like a man’s shirt who stopped us dead in our tracks will have to give us the time of day. We can be on an island in the morning, a mountain in the after noon, and sleep in the penthouse that evening. Important men will want to ask us for favors. We can tell off that guy that said that thing to us that time that hurt way more than it should have. We’ll have the time to write that book, and learn that language, and play the piano, and stay in bed until three even though we already got bored being there at two.

And we won’t be selfish. Our parents will get a piece so that they can have the retirement they always wanted. Our friends will get to pay back all their loans and will still have cash left over to do what they want. “This isn’t a loan”, we’ll tell them. “It’s a gift, to do with as you please. You don’t owe me anything.”

The homeless guy is going to get a hundred. The tip jar at the pizza place is going to get a hundred. The free newspaper guy is going to get a hundred. And maybe you just happen  to like that guy’s face over, so he gets a hundred.

There are no longer limits. There’s no more structure. The rules don’t apply to you anymore. You are a rich person without maintenance. The world has shrunk back down into the palm of your hand and you can reinsert yourself into anyplace you wish.

Then, some guy in Florida jumps for joy, and you have to be at work early on Monday.

Of course you didn’t win the money. You’re never going to win the money.

But, you did get to win. You did get to dream. You did get to let break down the walls of limitations you built to prevent let down. You did to soar again untethered to the probabilities you know all too well then float on the warm waters that ripple possibilities. You got to wax quixotic if only in your own head. You got to beat the windmill.

I paid my $2.

The fantasy was fantastic.

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