The Benefit of Keeping “An Ace in the Hole”

If you’re headed down a one way street
And you’re not sure it’s the way you wanna go
In money or love or all the above
Have a little more than what you show

When life deals out a surprise
Have a few surprises of your own
No matter what you do, no matter where you go
You’ve got to have an ace in the hole

              -George Strait, “Ace in the Hole”

George Strait, the crooner of many a country-western song, is called by some in Texas simply “King George.” Nature abhors a vacuum, and no sooner have we toppled our royalty than we invent some. But George Strait has earned his title. When you go to a real Texas wedding you might find a musical selection consisting exclusively of George Strait’s songs and a great many buckets of liquified flavored cheese known as queso. This for some is the Promised Land.

Back to the ace in the hole…

In the charming novel of family lore, John D. Fitzgerald’s “Papa Married a Mormon,” the larger-than-life character of Uncle Will keeps the ultimate “ace in the hole.” Raised Catholic, Will flees home and lives a hardscrabble life of gambling, gunslinging, womanizing, and drinking. He considers himself something of an agnostic, but, ever the committed poker player, he never says anything against God and never says God doesn’t exist. That way, if he dies and finds out it’s all true, he has a plausible loophole.

It’s the hardboiled, hard-drinking gambler’s version of Pascal’s wager. And it’s an interesting strategy to revisit.

We are now in a second age of the widely available internet. In the first age, dominated by LiveJournal, MySpace, and personal blogs, there was a race to share the most. Whoever could be the first to reveal the most detailed, humiliating, vulnerable, personal information and perspective would skyrocket in readership and have a chance at a book deal or daytime television appearance.

Not everyone was sucked into the sharing vortex, but several of the most successful stars of early internet typify this behavior. Decades in, the flaws of this strategy are abundantly clear. The hollow-hearted keyboard warriors are arrayed, ready to seize on every inconsistency, misstep, and unlikable quality.

Traumatized microcelebrities of the internet are realizing the benefits of withholding information. There can be a momentary feeling of outrage when they withhold information. How dare they hide things? But then you realize you don’t actually need to know the personal details of the lady who offers good sourdough recipes. Holding something back is healthy when a sea of strangers has access to everything you share on the internet. We should not confuse vulnerability with oversharing and embarrassing ourselves.

Vile entertainment like Harry’s navel-gazing memoir “Spare” call to mind an important strategy in an age of oversharing. Not, of course, because Harry demonstrates it, but because he so catastrophically fails.

As an aside, perhaps the only interesting feature of the Harry-and-Meghan Worldwide Privacy Tour are the striking similarities in the body language, interpersonal dynamics, royal ruptures, and fashion choices of Harry-and-Meghan and Edward-and-Wallis Simpson. That was a thoroughly cheery affair to the bitter end, so things are looking up for the Harkles!

Now, for the strategy: Do not be like Harry the dupe and “put it all on the line.” Follow the wisdom of King George and Uncle Will: always have an ace in the hole.