Poker is making me lose feeling.

[Roman]

I dont really read the posts on this forum, but what im writing about seems like it belongs here more than anywhere else so here goes.
I have been playing poker seriously for about a year now, and recently, it has had negative consequences on my life. I started out like most players, being totally distraught after every bad beat, getting a big rush from winning a big pot, etc. Partly thanks to these forums, I was able to change my outlook on poker, and detach myself from emotion when it comes to the game. It has come to a point where I don't feel happy when I make a final table, or scoop a $1,000 pot, and dont feel bad when im bad beat or on a month long losing streak.
This in itself is probably a good thing and has helped me in becoming a good player. However, this has been a double-edged sword. I have since lost pretty much all pleasure and feeling in life. My outlook on life has become very calculated and detached, and things just seem to have lost their punch. It seems as if I do not enjoy anything anymore, and its gotten to the point where I think about the EV of every aspect of life. Money has COMPLETELY lost all meaning to me. Even sex is not that pleasurefull for me anymore.
My question is, what should I do? I guess "quit" will be a popular response, but I just don't see it helping too much. My mind is just conditioned to think in that sort of detached way. Anyone know of something that can help? I am pretty good at conditioning myself mentally.

[ifoldaces]

Your mind is a sponge. Just as water flowing into it, it swells with information and becomes hardened after its all settled in. Once you truly realize this concept you can start to change it.

You must "wet" the sponge again, that is realize that all you feel is simply the way it "hardened" last time (which was when you were learning and conditioning yourself to play poker). Definately take a break from poker for awhile and try to do something else productive. Poker is not life.

Good luck.

[Bodhi]

Are you sure that this problem is caused by Poker? How do you know?

Rather than suggesting therapy, or giving up Poker, or some other kind of mystical advice, I say you supplement your Poker skills with a game where the short term results count, e.g. chess, go, or whatever floats your boat. If you lose a game of chess or go, it's because of something you did wrong. You screwed up, you're an idiot, etc. Now don't you feel better already? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Or, at least, feeling angry is better than feeling nothing at all. Better yet, if win you are responsible for your winning. When I feel numb from Poker (because of a bad session), few things feel as good as destroying someone's ego over a chess board.

What you're saying sounds like you've grasped objective reality, and now you want the illusion back. I think you can be strong enough for objective reality, don't you?

[Roman]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you sure that this problem is caused by Poker? How do you know?


[/ QUOTE ]

Poker has dominated my brain for a long time, and I have conditioned myself to think this way.


[ QUOTE ]
I say you supplement your Poker skills with a game where the short term results count, e.g. chess, go, or whatever floats your boat.

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I do play chess occasionally, but I really dont care about games of chess I may lose or win, they don't really count for everything, maybe if I could set up a match versus someone I hate [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
What you're saying sounds like you've grasped objective reality, and now you want the illusion back. I think you can be strong enough for objective reality, don't you?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ignorance is bliss [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I havent been able to like girls ffs.


You have given me quite a bit to think about, thanks.

[Bodhi]

I'm glad I could help.

Perhaps *anything* that gets you emotional would be good, even if it's something unpopular, uncouth, or downright silly.

I'm reading the book "A Confederacy of Dunces." It's one of the best, and most funny, books I've ever read. Check it out.

[A_C_Slater]

Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow.

[mantasm]

I have all the characteristics of a human being - flesh, blood, skin, hair - but not a single clear, identifiable emotion except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside me and I don't know why.

It turns out you were just imagining killing those people.

[PairTheBoard]

Maybe a little bungee jumping? A trip to a national park? A spiritual retreat. Some yoga lessons?

I have a friend who works as a hospice volunteer, spending time with terminally ill people. He says it gives him a tremendous boost in his perspective on life.

PairTheBoard

[ifoldaces]

bungee jumping is a great idea.. really.. i did it recently

[A_C_Slater]

...where there was nature and earth, life and water, I saw a desert landscape that was unending, resembling some sort of crater, so devoid of reason and light and spirit that the mind could not grasp it on any sort of conscious level and if you came close the mind would reel backward, unable to take it in.

It was a vision so clear and real and vital to me that in its purity it was almost abstract. This was what I could understand, this was how I lived my life, what I constructed my movement around, how I dealt with the tangible. This was the geography around which my reality revolved: it did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one's taking pleasure in a feeling or a look or a gesture, of recieving another's love or kindness.

Nothing was affirmative, the term "generosity of spirit" applied to nothing, was a cliche, was some kind of bad joke. Sex is mathematics. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire--meaningless.

Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilt, waste, failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in...this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged...