Zen: Righteousness

Or, to put it another way, "the only thing preventing you from knowing, is knowledge."

What images do you see when you hear the word 'righteousness'? For me, I get: the Crusades, the Catholic Church, Evangelicals. But, now that I think about it, what is it really?

Right vs. Wrong. Good vs. Evil. Morality is an aspect of a peaceful society, a way to teach how to live in prosperity. So, as children growing up, we learn what is "right", according to the local custom.

As we grow older and start to form our own identities, we start to question what is right and wrong for ourselves. Rebellion is about trying the 'wrong' things out for a change, to get attention from authority.

Right is sometimes accompanied by a reward, such as on a quiz show or in an auto collision. Being right often leads to pleasure, being wrong can often bring the opposite.

"Doing right" is what some people dedicate their lives to. Whatever they decide in their minds is "the right thing(s) to do", that becomes their reason for living. The way they keep score in their "life game". Some are flexible, and constantly rewriting their criteria, some are rigid, sticking to their guns no matter what. This is how I see "righteousness", the degree to which someone will "stick to their guns."

Well, I'm happy to say that I have a clear answer for all of this.

There is no right, no wrong. Period. It's all subjective. And PLEASE I hope you are listening now, carefully listening. I don't mean that "it's all subjective, what you see as "right", I may see as "wrong". I mean that there is no scale, NO SUCH THING.

Society doesn't determine anything that is "right" or "wrong", it just labels things as such. Really, they are "self-preserving" and "self-destructive".

Your parents can't tell you what is right or wrong. While they are working from more life experience, earlier in the human timeline, that doesn't grant them magic "judgment powers." Most will pass what they have discovered along to their children, the best that they can. Evolution logically favors those who can pass the most knowledge to their offspring.

Have you gotten it yet? No right, no wrong, no in-between. Things just are.

So, now in this context:

What do you really gain from being right about things? I'm guessing you can think of a whole truckload of reasons. Okay, me too, for a certain set of things I'm right about. Choosing to marry my wife, for instance.

Now toss all of those away, and think of one that you might gain nothing from, maybe actually lose something from. I'll pick winning an argument with my wife for instance. Let's say that an international committee of experts was able to judge our disagreement, and they came back with "Emptyman is 100% right. Unanimous decision." What have I gained, really?

I can feel good about myself. Maybe feel victorious. But it's all pretend, because nothing actually came from it. Just "righteousness", possibly at the expense of my wife's feelings.

So, instead, we choose a co-empowering relationship. When we disagree, we both act in good faith to come to an understanding/agreement. No games are allowed. We are each expected to call "bullshit" when someone goes off the tracks, with a power-play, passive-aggressive arguments, playing the victim, etc. And by committing to always act in good faith, we have a constructive, communicative, happy marriage. But, enough about me. Let's talk poker. We're almost there.

Stop for a second, and examine your thoughts, watch them for a while. Do they revolve around proving yourself right, occasionally? Often? I recently noticed that "often" was my best answer.

A subtle distinction can be made here. Obviously as a human being, we are constantly validating our choices, our decisions. By learning we create a desired result, we can do it again in the future. This is completely natural. The distinction to be made is if you are "fudging the facts", whether a little or a lot, in order to be right. (See also: Delusion)

For instance, astrology is popular because it's written in a voice that allows people to claim its conclusions as their own, thereby making them "right" about themselves, and their universe. But if you asked an independent panel if a given entry is true about someone, you would get a lot less "yes" answers than if you ask the person themselves. "Not only do I know these things to be "true", but an authority on the subject agrees with me! That means it's definitely right!"

Personally, I noticed a particular pattern specifically. It was when I was making some arbitrary choice, like whether to take the highway around town or the main streets through town. I would choose one, then when I evaluated at the end, I found I was "cheating". I got pleasure from knowing that I was right, even though sometimes, technically, well, I was wrong. I was justifying, "I went the right way, even if 2 trains came and freakishly caused it to take longer." Cheating, basically. I knew there was a non-zero chance that a train would come, but I discounted it retroactively to make it seem like I was "unlucky".

Objectively, if I asked someone else to do the same experiment, and report back to me, I can tell you unequivocally that I would value accuracy over all else. When you ask me what value I put on their "being right", I can quickly say "zero."

Knowledge is the only barrier to knowing. I can see the pure truth, but the reason that truth used to be corrupted in my memory is because I "needed to be right about it." So I remembered differently, inaccurately. Not necessarily about what happened, but definitely about my "predictive powers". Now I value accuracy above all else. I will pay attention as closely as I can to the actual reality of each moment.

Shuffle up and deal! Okay, AA the first hand. All right! You choose to get sneaky, and just limp. Flop comes 3 diamonds, King high, and you have the A! All right! You stay tricky, and check the flop. You put in a sneakily small bet on the turn, getting two customers. Non-diamond on the J on the river, and you value bet. Min-raised, you instacall, and the pot is shipped to KJ, who hit his two pair on the river. Bad luck, eh?

So you played it wrong. Or did you play it right, just getting unlucky? That should be the LAST thing on your mind, because it misses the point, and possibly pollutes everything real that DID happen. Accuracy should be valued above all else, what really happened, not how "right" you were. For example, there was an alternative, bet more, and more often you will claim a smaller pot early.

Sklansky points out wisely and quite correctly, usually there is a right decision in poker. People take the any-two-cards/any-playing-style way too far, and often will find themselves justifying bad plays accordingly. Usually there is a mathematical favorite, correct by definition.

Analyze hands objectively, don't worry about being right. Work on being as "correct" as possible in the future, and use the information you have as honestly as you can, in order to best accomplish that objective.

If I tell you something, and you tell me you already know that, what you are really saying to me is that you are choosing not to listen to me. You are telling me that your internal view is obviously already correct, and no extra information can possibly improve on that.

In centuries past, kings and queens would keep a court of wise men, and one court jester. A fool, to ask the dumb questions. To assume nothing, to know nothing, just to listen and to see something for what it really was.

Consider this, would you prefer to be a wise man or a fool? Or are those actually opposites at all?