WSOP Recap Part One: Lessons Learned From Party of Five

When I was in middle school, my family finally upgraded to a bigscreen tv and I got a hold of the old, tiny rabbit ears box we had been using and set it up on a wardrobe in my room. The antenna was broken so the set only got a fuzzy PBS and a generally clear FOX. The best show on FOX back then was Ally McBeal, and I also watched Frasier reruns as I tried to fall asleep. Somewhere in there I started watching Party of Five, probably because the show had Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Lacey Chabert in it.

Party of Five also starred Matthew Fox, now Jack on Lost, one of the worst prominent actors working today. Fox's character, Charlie, had assumed patriarchal duties after the family's parents had been killed. Charlie was almost as devoid of personality as Lost's Jack. Much of the show was concerned with Charlie's battle with cancer. Finally, after years of battle, the cancer went into remission. Charlie went out to celebrate and impregnated a stripper.

That was the last I ever watched of the show. It was a soap opera, and I don't watch soap operas. I was disgusted that they would immediately bolt in with a fresh catastrophe the moment after the show's primary denouement had finally been reached. There was no down time, no chance to enjoy that epic victory, no moment in the sun. Just more drama.

There was a fleeting moment in May when I had found what I believed to be legitimate happiness. Then came Las Vegas.

Things were chugging along decently at the WSOP, certainly not glorious but not too troublesome. Then my cousin committed suicide. My cousin was a wonderful, effervescent man who brought happiness to others, but fortune was not on his side. My cousin's mother has had multiple sclerosis for many years. My cousin was diagnosed with MS himself. I believe his first-hand knowledge of the disease proved too oppressive a sentence.

Shortly after I returned to Vegas, something terrible happened. I was betrayed by people close to me. The memories of that awful incident have since receded, and I have forgiven the people involved. But it still reverberates in my head, a reminder of evolution's most horrifying property: people are not meant to be happy.

We are meant to grow, and age, and procreate, and care for each other. But nowhere in there is there any reason for enduring happiness. Evolution wants us to mate and raise healthy children, and these things may in fact bring us joy. But evolution doesn't require, or even ask for, anyone to be happy. Those other goals come first; happiness is an unnecessary byproduct.

This all must sound rather doom and gloom, yet that is not my disposition. The realization that I cannot expect prolonged contentment is somewhat of a relief. That was too lofty a goal. Life is more feasible with the knowledge that happiness is a side-effect, not an aspiration. There is always hope for happiness, and it will always exist in some form. But as Charlie found out, the light at the end of the tunnel might just be fairer shades of grey.