We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise
But a spirit with a vision
Is a dream with a mission
- Rush, “Mission” from the Hold Your Fire album

Las Vegas is one of my least favorite places in the world, probably ranking just under Chernobyl, and maybe rating a bit higher than the gas station bathroom I once slipped in. Vegas is all façade, and its grand deception is that it promises quick and easy riches, hiding that it’s actually a machine carefully calculated to suck cash from suckers.

I don’t gamble, because the long odds don’t appeal to me. The chance of a worthwhile payoff is small, and the probability of disappointment is pretty high.

This is the same reason I don’t play MMOs. I learned from a months-long stint in World of Warcraft years ago that the game is largely about grinding. I calculated the number of hours I needed to spend slaughtering centaurs or yetis or candle-wearing kobolds in order to get special items (how does a dire wolf carry a two-handed sword?). Generally, the higher the value of the treasure, the lower its chances of dropping, and the longer I had to grind to get it. When I started thinking of the opportunity costs of those few hours, I realized that I could get a higher emotional payoff by spending the same time slicing onions, or reading a book. So I stopped playing.

This investment-payoff concept seems to apply to other activities as well. We use it in crafting fiction–readers expect a payoff in proportion to the time and emotion they invest in a story. I enjoy posting to twitter more than to this blog, partly because a tweet that I spent 30 seconds cranking out can often generate the same level of response as a blog post that took two hours of careful effort. One reason I love rock climbing so much is that I’m in the steep portion of the learning curve. I seem to level up with every bouldering session.

So, where does writing fit in all of this? I just poured six weeks of painstakingly accrued vacation time and several thousand dollars in a writing workshop. For genre fiction. Note the opportunity costs: this was time *not* spent investing in my family, friends, IT career and work projects, etc. And this, and time and money spent on SF cons and writer retreats, and hundreds of hours writing each year, all for the long shot that I’ll become a regularly published, recognized SF author some day.

Fortunately, I’m reaping huge emotional rewards as I go–the satisfaction I feel when I recognize that I’ve created something of beauty (or intentionally disturbing), and the immense joy I get out of the relationships I’ve formed with others who care about this crazy SF-writing business. Maybe this is why some folks get more out of MMOs than I did–while I was a solo-gamer, they join guilds and huge raids and have the pleasure of collaborating with other humans who care deeply about the same things they care about.

That said, maybe I’m more of a gambler than I give myself credit for. Maybe some dreams are so important to me that I’m willing to pour my entire life and soul into them, to fight for them, to work patiently towards them, staking it all on the long shot. Maybe the costs of not pursuing the dream are greater than the cost of failure.

But the odds don’t look so bad when you’re convinced it’s a sure thing.