Seven Eleven, Schrödinger’s Cat, and the Spirituality of Superposition in the California Lottery
A pseudo-philosophical exploration from a college dropout
Content Advisory: This explores my experiences / thoughts on playing the lottery! It includes gambling talk (including mentions of gambling addiction).
I play the California lottery once a week. The ritual around it has changed some since I began playing a couple years ago. My friend and old property-mate Mia introduced me. Sometimes it's the Powerball, sometimes the Megamillion, often whatever is higher. Sometimes it’s even with a lucky crystal gifted to me by “Digger”, an older man who swore the very rock won him $35K at a casino. I met him while he was doing a beat poetry routine in the back of his 65’ chevy in downtown Arcata. The crystal hasn’t paid off quite yet, but I haven’t given up hope.
The lottery ticket location has changed over time. It used to be 4th St. Market in Arcata every Thursday, (colloquially known as “Pink’s” before they painted it white earlier this year). Sometimes it’d be a road trip gas station. Now it’s the Seven Eleven on Judah by my house, usually at some point when I go in for a 12 oz cup of 7/11 gold (with 2 creamer cups). Mia told me the location that sells the winning jackpot ticket gets a million bucks. I hope they do someday.
I used to not know what attracted me to playing. Sure, we play it because we could all use 30 million dollars sent our way, and it’s easy enough to pay a coupla clams to get your dog in the race. I’ve never been much of a gambler though, except the occasional twenty lost to the slots at the Blue Lake casino.
Though, after some time, I realized that I play because I like the feeling of the few days leading up to the draw. Once I buy a ticket, I exist in a state of potential. I know my odds (they’re not in my favor), but it doesn’t matter. For those couple of days, I exist in an almost mythic space of suspended reality in which all possibilities are endless. It’s the Schrödinger’s Cat of the California Lottery. Until the ticket is drawn, we all are and we all aren’t multi millionaires.
As an anxious guy, I feel like I often exist in a liminal space of a million outcomes. Until the future plays out, I am sometimes living out every terrible trajectory my little mind can muster. But that lottery moment, that space between ticket purchase and drawing, reflects how my life is full of uncertainties. Am I about to be rich? Probably not. But in this period of waiting, I learn how to live with that ambiguity, the absurdity of possibility. It shows me that what feels like a path set in stone, is fluid and could be transformed by a lucky draw. Nothing is set.
I don’t think the purchase is about rationality at all, but entering into that mythic space where the rules of probability don’t really apply. Even though I know the odds, every time I engage in this fantasy I momentarily occupy a state where anything is possible. In this mythic space, I get to embrace the absurdity of the situation, the absurdity of hopefully entering a drawing against odds of 300 million to one. It’s not about the monetary reward but participating in an absurd ritual of chance.
I think Schrödinger’s Cat has now evolved from quantum thought experiment to a bit of a cultural metaphor. By engaging with the paradox, we engage with uncertainty and the Unknown, forces that I historically find uncomfortable in my daily life. However, in both the cat’s paradox and the lottery, we find comfort in the idea that possibility is always alive until proven otherwise. In a sense, the mythic space of the lottery allows me the ability to escape from the rigidity of everyday life, and the certainty that comes with it. In a way, it keeps the magic alive.
Maybe this is spiritual bypassing a very light gambling addiction. Or maybe it's a little spiritual ritual in this hectic life. Or maybe I just want to be rich. Either way, gotta pay to play.
- Gabe