Confessions of a chess addict
By: Louis George Martin
Tags: Community, Life Lessons, Doing Good, Consumerism, Economy

What gives meaning to a life? What makes it worth living? If you went in search of an answer and asked a hundred people, they would all say things like love, football, friendship, or helping others. Cross over the tracks and you might find answers like partying, alcohol, gambling, and crack. And if you are prepared to give up a weekend and traipse to some far-out village hall in Yate or Almondsbury, then you will find rooms full of ticking clocks, and people, people battling it out using nothing but the power of the mind, battling for space, battling for pawns, for domination, for checkmate. Now these people might give you an answer that you had not considered: chess.

It would be given flippantly and followed by a nervous laugh. After all, could even a true chess-head put his hand on his heart and say that this game made their life worth living? And if not, why are all these people around the world sitting on the loo with a puzzle book, watching hours of grandmaster videos on YouTube, devoting days to the study of opening theory, and entire weekend after weekend playing gruelling tournaments, if it doesn’t make their lives worth living? Haunted by nightmares of undefendable positions, dreaming of attaining a higher rank, of coming even 1 step closer to the hallowed FIDE title of master, International Master, or even Grandmaster. Dreams that ultimately boil down to ambition and the sating of a hungry ego.

Am I delving into these 64 squares, like a deep-sea diver in a puzzle in which after the first 5 moves there are more possible combinations than there are atoms in the universe, just to get a little dopamine hit? Just for a little more validation? To feel strong, intelligent, like a winner. Is that why I am not present in the moment, because I am always thinking of sneaking off to get another ‘hit.’ There’s nothing wrong with being a chess player, is there?

When our team wins at the weekend, we feel good, but if they lose, we feel bad. If I beat Tom by just 1 on this round of golf, I go home beaming, even though he beats me almost every week. Or when people sit there on the bus, crushing candy or whatever the fuck they do, listening to music, staring out the window, rather than saying hello to another person, is it all self-absorbed ego worship?

When you sink time into your hobbies, you invest a part of yourself that is irretrievable, and it comes to a point when it’s hard to give up. How can you walk away when you feel so close to the peak of that mountain? The answer only becomes clear once you have made the decision — the horizon expands and you see mountains all around; more intriguing, higher, easier to climb, better vistas and more people on the ascent train.

To meet, to serve, to connect: these acts are self-healing. Validation is just around the corner. It is less immediate, it is less easy, there are no flashing lights and the phone won’t make that addictive dinging sound that you secretly so crave. Grow yourself, and not just by one more level on the PC game you are playing. Grow by helping others, by deepening your connections and your thinking. Avoid playing games like poker, chess, tiddlywinks, and other solo pursuits that lead nowhere and help no one. Imagine if we all took one of those hours that we spend each week binging on Netflix and made ‘helping others’ our newest hobby and interest. And if you really want to then yes, you can chat about it at work over the water fountain or the coffee stand.

How and why do we make these choices to obsess over our hobbies rather than do good in the world? What stops us from searching for, or serving our higher purpose, or at least volunteering in the local Oxfam? Are we so selfish that our interests take priority long before we think of others? The answer is definitely yes, but we should be easy on ourselves because life is hard, isn’t it? And if we don’t do the things that make us happy then what is even the point of being alive? That may sound like a justification, and indeed that is all it is. It goes along with all the other justifications: I am looking after my health, I am developing my critical thinking, I am training my artistic eye, I am, I am, I am. Is it self-development, or only self-interest masquerading in the clothes of cultural acceptability? How many artists are seeking only to express themselves rather than to inspire others? Is it a crime to look inward?

We have come to a point where we would consider going to a pub quiz, watching drivel on the drivel box, painting miniature airplanes, chasing a leather sphere around a freezing field, and generally trying to get as many balls in as many holes as fast as we can, all long before we consider doing something that even approaches an act of altruism. What the hell is going on here? Why am I not thinking about baking cakes for my neighbour, or taking part in a youth mentoring program for disadvantaged kids? Is it just because I am in my 20’s that neither thought has crossed my mind? Are we all too whacked out from work? Were we always so individually minded? Has the role that hobbies play in society morphed? What a good way not to think about anyone else, or the state of the world: I will just think about the pieces on the board here in front of me, or just try to make par on this hole. Is it that our ‘careers’ are so lacking in advancement that we need these hobbies to meet that fundamental human need for progression? No wonder we are a nation of nerds and jocks who think nothing of spending £50 on a tournament entry, a plastic replica of the Bismarck, or a 1-hour session with a sports coach, and yet when asked in the street to give £2 a month to a charity our instinct is to look the other way.

We work too much, are far too greedy, and give almost no thoughts to helping others. We deserve to have the world implode on us and if we carry on as we are it will, and people won’t care that much — that is apathy in action. That is our ego’s defence mechanism, activated rather than weep over the gross inequality that we see every day in our local communities, and it is to be our enemy, if we are to all do what we can to try to save this sinking ship.

I confess: I’ve used more plastic than I have planted trees by a factor of a million to one, and I have certainly spent more time jacking off than talking to homeless people. I easily spend more time every day in selfish leisure than I do talking to my family or making time to spend with them. Have you spent more time on yourself or on those around you? These new age leisure activities, these pre-packaged identities, these training programs, have all become so alluring, the tv shows so engrossing, that it starts to feel like our families, the other people around us, are less and less interesting. We have less motivation to spend time with them and so we don’t. Like little rats going back to the cocaine laced water bottle we suck and suck, pumping our time, our dollars, into the economy, all the while neglecting what really matters — and that is exactly the point. When we think about ourselves and indulge, consumerism blooms; when we meditate and bake consumerism recoils. This is the reality: our economy wants us to think more about ourselves than others and it has conditioned you to do so.[1]

Caveat: I give less than 1% of my money to charity, though I am generous with friends and family. I do call them, sometimes, and I have volunteered abroad (go me). Still, I have a long way to go to bring a better balance to my life. What about you?

[1] This is a generalisation. DUH.