[toots]

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, it's not 100% accurate, but this week, it seems like a reasonable approximation. For some reason - that right now eludes me - the notion of "turning pro" has an amazing pull for a lot of people, and those people tend to be male.

To me, it seems like a great way to really screw up an otherwise nice hobby.

Of course, there's the old saying that "All American Men are great drivers, great lovers" - and great poker players? - "just ask them."

From this, it seems like so much about poker seems to boil down to "representin' a big johnsom." Everyone here is a winning player, or at least says so. Suggesting that someone's a poor player, or suggesting that someone move down in limits, is often greeted with the sort of enthusiasm otherwise reserved for the Freudian theory of "castration anxiety."

There are a few other occupations that seem to end up taking residence in a similar place in my mind. Gold prospecting, for instance. The best a person can do is wreck the local economy, especially if the currency is based on gold. Trying to make a living by having a "rock band" would be another. The best you can do there is one more "Me, too" among entertainers, although I can certainly be convinced of the usefulness of that long before I can of gold prospector.

They all seem to have the common thread of "working real hard to avoid work." By that, I mean that there seems to be some specially powerful "Representin' a big johnson" pull to the notion of making a living in such a way as to make a minimal addition to the GNP.

Funny, because when someone decides to become a doctor because he likes playing god, it doesn't even cause a blip because regardless of the motivations, everyone can see the value that a doctor adds to the general population.