Alexandersmap

    Tag: Chess

    • Practiced Reasoning

      “While we naturally understand that writing is a good way to share ideas with others, we under-appreciate just how much good writing helps us think about an idea ourselves. Writing is not only a means of communication, it enables us to practice reasoning.
      Writing forces you to slow down, focus, and think deeply. In a world where attention is fragmented into seconds, thinking becomes more reactive than reasoned. Only when [we] take time to play with our ideas can we hope to think about them substantially. Writing requires sticking with something a little longer and developing a deeper understanding.
      Writing is the process by which we realize we do not understand and the process by which we come to understand.”
      — Shane Parrish, Unspoken Expectations, Brain Food – No. 569 – March 24, 2024

      Until I read Shane Parrish’s latest newsletter, I still had it in my mind—even after a couple of thousand blog posts—that I was writing for others. I had it partially correct. I’ve been writing for myself, to better understand that which I encounter on this dash through the decades, and then to share that processing with you; the reader. I’ve talked of breadcrumbs and the processing of ideas before myself, so the idea isn’t exactly revolutionary, but he hammered it home well enough that I thought I’d practice a bit more reasoning writing about it here.

      The thing about documenting your own reasoning in a blog is that when you publish, you’ve let the world in on a bit of a secret. Deep down, you know more about who I am and how I process information about the world and my experience in it. Sure, I filter out enough that people aren’t guessing my passwords (those simple passwords are long gone anyway) or otherwise hacking my identity, but the bottom line remains clear: unless you’re writing a blog yourself, you know far more about how I think than I know about how you think. Advantage reader?

      Perhaps. But we aren’t adversaries in this game of life, are we? My reasoning, should you choose to follow along, is simply my half of a conversation. And as a writer we ought to view it as such. Otherwise what is it but a dull college lecture or a dad speaking to a table full of people staring at their phones? There are some blog posts that fail to resonate with the world, and it feels a lot like that latter example in such moments of posting into the vacuum of the Internet, but that is exactly the moment to remind myself that this blog post is one human’s humble attempt to reason with the universe and to see what comes from it.

      In a way, writing this blog is similar to playing chess with the computer. The computer always wins, often in frustratingly devious ways (like a cat and the mouse with me always the mouse), but each game is a lesson in strategic thinking for me, even in the loss. When the game is over, was it a waste of time or an incremental step forward towards becoming a better chess player (ie: strategic thinker)? So it is with this blog post and all those that preceded it. Each is an incremental step towards better reasoning, and better writing. And perhaps that’s enough to make me a better human too.

    • Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

      We treat our plans as though they are a lasso, thrown from the present around the future, in order to bring it under our command. But all a plan is—all it could ever possibly be—is a present-moment statement of intent. It’s an expression of your current thoughts about how you’d ideally like to deploy your modest influence over the future. The future, of course, is under no obligation to comply. — Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

      Yesterday I played chess for two hours with my brother, him shaking and physically beaten up from radiation treatments, but sharp-witted and sarcastic as ever, with his gallows humor in heavy use. I chipped away with bold chess moves that almost sunk me a few times before I ended up winning in the end. I don’t take it easy on him when it comes to chess, nor would he expect that from me. He’s won his fair share. Ultimately we were both grateful to play against a fellow human instead of the cold comfort of mouse clicks and a glaring computer screen. Chess is amongst the most beautiful games life has to offer—why do we play it so infrequently?

      Today I’d contemplated a long hike on a 4000 footer, but in the end I’m opting for dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday. I suppose I could have done both, but we prioritize what we will in our brief dance under the stars. The friends will be gone soon, sailing away in the fall to faraway places. Lasso time with them while you can, I think, and stop worrying about what you can’t do. We miss so much in our lifetimes—how many shooting stars did I miss by not gazing upward a beat longer? How many frozen ice sculptures melt away without my ever seeing them? We can’t worry about such things, we can only do what we might in the present moment. And try again in the next should we arrive there.

      Tomorrow may just arrive, and we ought to make our plans and live in hope that it all comes together. We have to place a little faith in a future we might not see, don’t we? Life is a collection of memories of moments gone by, but can only be lived now, with an eye towards then. All that matters is living with intent, and embracing the good while managing the rest. I intend to find a little magic in the world, to keep sending sparks of light wherever and whenever the opportunity presents itself, and celebrate it in my own modest way. Maybe that’s enough.

    • This Audacious Tango

      There was a time when I would consistently win chess games against the Apple chess application. I’d have the difficulty set to just the right place to challenge myself but not so challenging that I couldn’t win if I played well. Apple has since adjusted the settings to make it impossible to win a game unless, I imagine, you sign up for Apple Arcade or some such monthly fee. That’s a game I won’t play.

      So what do you do when it’s impossible to win a chess game against a computer? Join an online chess group and play against a person somewhere else in the world? Play a [gasp!] physical game of chess on a board against real humans? Or quietly give up the game and focus on other things, like that project you’re actively avoiding with computer games?

      I’ve learned to embrace the impossible coldness of computer chess against this cyber bully. Like life itself, we never get out alive, so why not dance with it? You could try to delete the app in frustration (Apple taunts you by making this nearly as hard as the game itself). You could pretend it doesn’t exist. I choose to dance, in moderation, with the futility of it all. To see how long I can play before the wave of artificial intelligence overwhelms my attempts to stem the tide. And in doing so, I’ve come to understand gallows humor a little better.

      We’re all dead men walking. No matter how much we try to game the system we’re all going to pass eventually. So, like that chess game, why not play the best game of life you can? Why not see how far you can take this audacious tango before the Almighty (Be it the Grim Reaper, God, Apple…. whatever) taps you on your shoulder and sends you to the sidelines?

      Life is full of moments when you realize that, dammit, things just aren’t going the way you wanted them to. We can either walk away in frustration or learn some new moves. Enjoy the moment for what it is and for all that it offers. The genetic lottery placed us here against all odds. We ought to show a bit of panache in our brief time in the game.

      That ought to mean, I should think, less time in front of a computer screen playing games and more time out in the world. Doing audacious things. Like meeting vibrant people out in the wild. Ready?

    • En Passant, Knowing Your Place and Breaking Rules

      I once got in a debate with my grandfather about the rules of chess. Specifically, he would execute En Passant when I would attempt to move past his advancing pawn. At the time I thought I knew the rules of chess, but it seems I’d never fully grasped the rules the pawn plays by. It wasn’t until I took the time to learn chess at a deeper level that I realized he was right all along. And I can see him winking at me in my mind.

      For those who don’t play the game, a pawn may advance one square forward, can’t move past a piece that blocks its forward advance until that piece moves and may capture another piece diagonally forward only. Simple. And then they added another rule to help speed up the game a bit, allowing you to move every pawn two squares forward on its initial move only. Well, this created a problem as well, for if an opponent’s pawn had advanced to a point where your move two squares forward eliminated their ability to capture your pawn in it’s forward diagonal move, you were essentially stealing the already limited power from the opponent’s pawn.

      En Passant, French for “in passing“, is a rule that allows the opponent to say “not so fast!” (Well, really they would say “en passant“) and execute the move of putting their pawn onto your square where your recently deceased pawn had once been. It’s a way of telling you not to get too far ahead of yourself or you’ll pay the consequences.

      And there lies the dark side to En Passant: It’s reminding the pawns of the world to know their place, to not get ahead of themselves or they’ll suffer the consequences. En Passant was invented long before democracy, and pawns generally knew their place and skated their lanes. The bold were snuffed out if they went a step too far.

      In democratic societies we chafe at being pawns, and the bold among us do leap forward. The rules of law can still remind you you’re a pawn if you grow reckless, but mostly it’s other pawns telling you not to stick your neck out. And worse, En Passant largely resides in our own minds: Imposter syndrome, timidity, and fear of the unknown keep us skating in our own lane, one square at a time, while the big players in the world spin around us.

      A pawn that plays by the rules may advance forward diligently and become a queen or any player it wants should it reach the end. There’s a subtle message there too, and you look around and most people play that game. Skate your lane, reach the end and retire… Fine, I suppose, but a little less sparkle for your time on the board, don’t you think?

      No, there’s a place for boldness in this world. We are each in passing here for a very brief time. En Passant only applies to pawns, after all. And who said you had to be a pawn anyway?

    • Chess Boards and Calendars

      The chess board and the calendar are one and the same.  

      For each demands strategy and each is a game,

      of reaction and discipline and boldness in kind.

      I marvel at masters, 

      while struggling to keep more than two moves in mind

      I marvel at poets as well, for my words betray me as a clydesdale and my words as poetry on the fly.  So be it – not every dance is a tango.  Back to the topic at hand, the similarities between the chess board and the calendar.  I win my share of chess matches, but I find my vision of the board betrays me at times.  I focus so much on my own moves that I don’t always see the threat lurking on the other side.  But I know sometimes I can overcome a threat, while strategically making a noble sacrifice, with action towards my objective.  Chess and the calendar do demand reaction and discipline and boldness, and I try to play both with equal grace, but still struggle with each.  We never master the game of chess, just as we never master the calendar.

      I look at the moves I’ve made with time over the last twelve months, and know that I’ve made some moves I regret, but also many that I’m quite pleased with.  2019 is a year of brilliant highlights mixed with some real duds, which makes it like just about every year I’ve been on the planet.  We build the calendar and hope for the best.  I can stand back and see myself in the beginning of a pivot, but the direction I’m pivoting isn’t entirely clear yet.  So I press on, filling the calendar with necessary meetings and positive habits that offer incremental growth.  A few have paid off, a few have been complete failures, and a few are just in the embryonic stage and need a bit of nurturing to grow.  Such is life; we never look like what we once were when we grow.

      Playing chess last night against the computer instead of a human, I felt bored and was going through the motions.  Passing the time.  That’s a great time to walk away from something when that something doesn’t move you towards a place you need to be, and I finished the game and turned off the computer.  Life is too short to play boring games, and chess had lost its luster for me for the moment.  In some ways the calendar has too, and it’s a wake-up call to see where the calendar is taking me and start filling it with more things that get me where I’m going.  Wherever that may be. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it, as the saying goes.  As in chess, stop being distracted by reactionary moves and be more bold.  Better still, weave a little more magic into the calendar.  Ready?

       

    • The Thing About Chess

      When I was in college I’d play chess for hours with roommates during the winter break.  We’d all come back from our respective part-time jobs and rotate in to play whomever the winner was.  Chess was the only thing I had in common with a couple of those guys and we drifted apart as rowing (for me) and other distractions (for them) took over.  During a college trip to Finland and what was the Glasnost-era USSR I picked up a magnetic chess set and we played the whole flight back.  But chess drifted away when the convenience of time that college offers drifted away.

      Fast forward years later and my grandfather moved up to Massachusetts from Florida when my grandmother passed away.  I’d schedule nights with him every week or two, I’d order some sandwiches and we’d play chess once or twice before calling it a night.  Chess with my grandfather was story time, and he’d tell me stories of working at Eastern Airlines in Miami where he’d play chess with some older black men who also worked there.  In the 1960’s that wasn’t the norm in Florida, but he told me he didn’t much care.  Just two guys playing chess during a work break.

      I tried to steer my kids towards chess, but no luck.  Too many other activities in their lives and it was a game that required some learning.  Checkers for awhile, and then it was on to sports and video games.  So I’d hit a dead end where there wasn’t an opponent to play against, and so the game drifted away again.  Playing the game in the newspaper or on a handheld device never appealed to me.

      Eventually I rediscovered chess on my Mac.  There are settings that allow you to make the virtual opponent devastatingly difficult or ridiculously easy.  Eventually I got a place where I’d win sometimes, the computer would win sometimes and the pace of play was satisfying enough to make it interesting.  Computer chess doesn’t offer the nuance of playing against a real person or the tactile experience of picking up and moving pieces, but it’s better than nothing.  Like other computer activity it becomes a time suck if you let it, so I’ve established rules for myself where I’ll only play in the evening on the home computer for a max of 3 games at a time.  None when I travel or during the work day.

      While there are chess clubs everywhere, when you live in the suburbs it’s not as convenient to find an opponent.  I think if I lived in the city I’d be drawn to the places that offer chess boards for anyone to sit down and play.  Harvard Square has a spot where I could play a chess master in one game and a homeless person in the next game.  I’d surely never leave if I lived or worked in Harvard Square.  Chess welcomes all players, and offers an opportunity to deeply focus on the complexity of the game with someone you might be on the opposite end of the spectrum politically, socioeconomically, in age or in countless other ways.  The world could use more chess players.