(Photo: Fischer's triumphant welcome home parade, New York City, after winning the World Chess Championship against Spassky)
Errol Tiwari has written an absolute masterpiece this week, pondering the question "Is Chess Life?"
Is chess life? The question is haunting. An attempt to give a definitive answer, however, is a formula for frustration. For someone who is lonely or emotionally unstable, the therapeutic impact of the game could be enormous. On the chess board we play people, for the most part, and move them around to secure certain crucial positions.
There is the King, whom we have pledged to protect, because we know that if we don't we ourselves are lost. And then there is the Queen, whom we love and value greatly. Without her, we enter into situations from which we have difficulty extricating ourselves. Religion is with us too in the context of the Bishops. The church's influence on the game and our lives is tremendous.
The Pawns are the common people whose indirect importance should never be underestimated. Some may rise from the masses to be the masters of other peoples' destiny. The Rook or Castle is where we seek refuge in extreme situations when we are compelled to dart for cover. With the Knight, we can be in motion and oversee our empire at the same time, still calculating, still manoeuvering, still planning.
We can find emotional security to an extraordinary degree in a game. The inanimate wooden or plastic pieces can come to life if we want them to, and become our friends upon whom we can depend. As many gifted and solitary children turn away from reality into a world of books, we can do the same by burying ourselves in chess.
The world at large considers chess an ancient sport of kings. Some say it is an eminent struggle, and perhaps a noble pastime, but hardly an art. Others contend it is a mere game, perhaps nice and abstruse, but an idle amusement, no more, no less. A former world champion, Emmanuel Lasker, described chess as "a fight." There are others who argue it is a science. The fact is, of course, that all these elements are present. There are some aspects of the game which reach deep into the psyche. We know for certain it is a confrontation of two minds, one trying to dominate, and if necessary, crush the other. Some players achieve psychic gratification this way. Over the chess board they can triumph and live out their fantasy life.
Fortunately, the brutal side of the game is counteracted by an opposing ideal for truth and beauty. For chess has its own morality, its own integrity. Chess players are quite familiar with Lasker's famous quotation in his Manual of Chess: "On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite."
What I believe Lasker is saying is that all creative chess players aim only for truth over the board - truth as manifested in the integrity of a combination to which there is no answer; truth as manifested in the creation of an elegant sequence of moves; truth as manifested in such a high order of creation that sheer beauty is the result. And truth is life itself; a determining factor in the manner in which we live.
In chess, your body has to be in good condition. Your chess deteriorates if your body does. You cannot separate mind from body. If chess is not life itself, the two are nevertheless related to each other because one learns from the other.
The trait of taking anything for granted relates to both chess and life. Trusting nothing or no one, sometimes not even oneself, remains the key for being ready for any eventuality. The final outcome of a project, whether on the chess board or in life itself, is measured by paying attention to every minuscule detail. This is chess. This is life.
If history teaches anything, it teaches us that careful planning, and not wishful thinking, is what separates the corn from the chaff. History, it is said, teaches us the mistakes we are going to make.
Chess games which have been played and documented, are replete with history. As we replay them, we see where the masters went wrong and we strive not to make similar mistakes. After a while, this attitude of being careful and learning from previous experiences and other peoples' mistakes, is translated to other aspects of our existence.
And this is why we have to instil the game of chess into the minds of our young people.What the young think is what counts, because what they think is what the future knows.
Numbers are important. The success of a nation in reaching the highest level in the structural edifice of chess lies in numbers. The vast number of people playing chess in Russia and other European countries guarantees that champions would eventually emerge from the serious chess-playing nations of the continent. Among the many, lie the few who would ascend upward to meet the clouds.
Playing an international game of chess is like taking a five-hour final examination. When we apply a similar approach to crucial situations in our lives, we can conclude realistically, that chess is life.
For me, chess is more than just a sport. It has a direct relationship to intellectual development and to art. For me, chess is art. For me, chess is life.
1 comment:
omg this really touched me, i thought i was the only one who has felt this way for so long... thank you
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