When The Dice Are In The Air

People who study addiction claim that gamblers are not hooked on winning, contrary to what one might expect.

It's not the occasional lucky hand or big payout that brings them back to the table or the slot machine again and again. Instead, it's that moment before fate is cast, those fleeting indeterminate seconds when anything is possible. Gamblers, regardless of whether they are on a winning or losing streak, experience the same opiate-like high when the dice are in the air, not after they land.

It gets to the root of human behavior and psychology. Anything can happen, and those encounters with chance address our need for hope. And they seem to put us in touch with something eternal - as if some primitive god had tipped back the lid of the cosmos for a second, allowing a glimpse at the quantum uncertainty boiling underneath events.

The actual face of gambling is profane, often pathetic, and very seldom glamorous.

And that's where we are with the national election. A wide variety of outcomes are possible for both major political parties - momentum is changing daily, but all of the candidates are clustered close together in the polls. At this point the election is like a town in the Wild West, with two saloons standing opposite each other, and a chair-breaking, fist-fighting brawl has broken out in each one while the piano players pound the keys madly, and the press looks down from the top of the stars like jaded, old fashioned hookers.

Soon enough one candidate from each side of the fray will stagger out into the street to face each other. But for now anything could happen, and for us political junkies and gamblers it's that sublime moment of uncertainty.