The Ultimate Game

Games are a way of life...and maybe death, too.

I was offered a particularly enlightening insight yesterday by one of my colleagues, Dr. Tim Anderson.

Tim said: Chess is the ultimate game narrative. As your skills increase, you go from pushing wood, to being so engaged with the narrative of the game - the story of your moves, and the story of your opponents moves, and the way they relate - that it becomes filled with a richness that goes beyond "play."

I wonder if understanding chess is like living in a zen state - where the motives, moves, and conflicts open into something more like a dance; a series of ritualistic movements that tell a story of opening, conflict, and resolution. Just like a three-act story structure.

I wonder, then, if Bobby Fischer got to the point where he could not just see the world around him, but through it, and like so many others, decided to withdraw from it completely. Having seen the polarities of black and white representing the self, him self, he could not digest the disconnection and constant state of war we encourage between these seemingly-opposing positions.

Death, is of course, the ultimate resolution.

Three fascinating documentary segments that I wasn't allowed to embed: One, Two, Three.