life, progress, chess and choices

choice sometimes one

“Man’s exile is ignorance; his home is knowledge.” 

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Honorious of Autun

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“This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn.

We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous …

 indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”

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Richard Dawkins

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Let’s talk about Life: choices, ignorance, knowledge.

Let’s talk about Life: some things happen because Life is an indifferent purposeless, neither good nor evil, player in your Life.

Let’s talk about Life: It is a game and Life not only plays an active role but it is clearly an opponent.

Which leads me to Life as a chess game, or, maybe better said, he voyage of the soul is often like a game of chess in which you:

Move … counter move.

Rarely move in a straight line.

You dictate some moves.

You react to some moves.

Throughout we gain knowledge forward, backward, diagonally and even by moving chess life choices potter 1sideways.

I note that thought because so often people discuss ‘moving forward.’

“Keep going” <with an implication that is always ‘ahead’>.

And yet Life, like chess, is about facing the entire board and obstacles & opportunities which lie all around you — not just in front of you.

Well.

In chess … “ahead” come in a variety of directions and moves.

Regardless. The chess metaphor suggests Life is lived by unlocking different paths in which you make counter moves and moves against Life. It also suggests your plan is ultimately defined, at least in some part, by the moves made against you. It also suggests our fate is inevitably made of the sum total of all choices already made <which means fate is neither fickle nor some amorphous concept but … uh oh … rather derived by our choices>.

I thought about this thought after reading the following words in a book:

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“In exile men are captured and enslaved while in their homeland they can be free men and beneath their own roofs may reign supreme.

Yet in what does human freedom consist?

The voyage of the soul is like a game of chess.

The object of the game is to entrap the opponent’s king by limiting progressively the opponent’s freedom to move his pieces about the board.

At the beginning of the game each player enjoyed an infinite number of choices.

But with each freely chosen move each player decreased by one an option of his own and perhaps as many as several options for his opponent.

There is a rapid diminishing of free choice for both sides so that as the end of the game nears the players realize their fates has been made by the sum total of those choices already made.

So it is for all men.

key to lifeOnly by foreseeing the ultimate consequence of all decisions and by foretelling the decisions of Life <your opponent in this case> can a man choose wisely and freely.

Yet freedom adheres only to the individual act itself and not to one’s life as a whole.

That being said … this suggests that each person is a lawgiver unto himself, his own magistrate and … ultimately … his own executioner.

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 Whew. So. This means we are lawyer, magistrate … and executioner of our own Life?

<insert “yikes” here>

Also. And while the chess pieces are black & white, how about the thought that Life is neither black nor white? Maybe it is simply indifferent to anything but the move or counter move you make. And if ignorance is exile … and knowledge is your home … your home is simply the square your piece currently resides on.

At the moment.

Only to move on again and again.

Uhm. That is some deep shit.

Here is what I like. Life is neither preordained nor is it assured that Life is a better chess player than you <albeit it has significantly more practice>.

Life is about moves and counter moves. And all the moves occur with multiple pieces on the board. And you can move in any direction … even pausing on occasion. I say that last thought because I believe we far too often see ourselves moving in some line … straight, diagonal, jagged or smooth. Maybe instead we are a number of pieces each of which are being moved against Life.

You can purposefully sacrifice one piece to attain your objective.

chess life tumble

You can lose a piece <even one you really didn’t want to lose> through a wrong move.

You can win a piece because Life wasn’t paying as close attention as it should.

But what I like most is that choices become more finite over time. I like that dose of reality. A dose in a world where so many positive psychology gurus espouse ‘ infinite choices‘ and ‘you can do whatever you want’ trite crap. This is a fairly simple concept <with a shit load of complex repercussions>.

Life is a game of chess. As time goes by you win pieces and lose pieces and progress across and around the board. But you will inevitably have less pieces and a diminishing number of free choices.

Yikes. That sounds a little … well … forbidding? Maybe a little ‘tough lovish’?

Shit.

That’s Life.

It takes some hard choices and some smart choices to play the game of Life.

Here is what I do know for sure about every move you make:

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“Nothing that we do, is done in vain.

I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.”

Charles Dickens

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Life is the voyage of the soul. Each move and counter move you make is one you choose seeking for a triumph … of the soul.

 

We may lose sight of that on occasion but as the once infinite choices become diminished and they become more clearly finite … you could be the village idiot … but you will recognize that the remaining choices become more and more about the soul.

Finiteness, or an inevitable ‘end’, has an amazing tendency to provide some clarity on what is important.

I think the earlier you recognize, this the better you play the Life game of choices.

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Written by Bruce