France. Yes, greetings from my flight back home. It’s been a while since I felt like writing, or to be more precise since my everyday imaginary writing materialized. Why now? Why not?
I have recently read a book which I liked a lot- “Siddhartha”,
by Herman Hesse. It was about the need one has to find meaning in life. The
novel is beautifully written and gives a lot of food for thought. I have the
feeling that Herman and I could have interesting conversations, preferably
accompanied by some glasses of wine. His “Steppenwolf” marked me deeply when I
read it in my late teens, and it might had been the first planted seed of what
has grown to be my quest for meaning.
Meaning… It’s not certain that there is one at all. It might
well be none whatsoever- like in my last 2 games, when from 2 completely
winning positions, I scored 0,5/2 versus lower rated opponents. Funnily enough,
I started the tournament well, scoring 3,5 out of the first 5 games, but the
quality of my games was questionable- to put it mildly. However, in the last 2
games, the quality raised significantly, and the results decreased accordingly.
Tell me now the universe doesn’t have a sense of humour. I would cry if it
wasn’t so funny.
On the other hand, I spent quality time with friends, though
they could argue differently. In the last day, one of them told me that they
might need some antidepressants before our next conversation. It came right
after my joyful explanation that suffering is not bad at all, and it can be
enjoyed. Now that I read it, perhaps some antidepressants would actually do me
good. Do you think Herman would write “Der Steppenwolf” if he was
prescribed some pills? No suffering, no quest for meaning. Perhaps the book
would then be called “The pack of wolves”. Jokes aside, it is always a dilemma
during tournaments- to spend nice time with your friends, who also happen to be
chess players, so you don’t really see each other in other circumstances or to
focus solely on the competition. You usually try to find some sort of balance. One way or the other- tournaments tend to
come to an end and then you travel back home, back to your thoughts and quests.
One time, after 4 years of travelling and meditating with no
dime to his soul, Siddhartha wanted to learn the way of love. He came to a city
where he saw a beautiful courtesan who he immediately knew would be the perfect
teacher. When approaching her, asking to be taught the ways of love, the
beautiful courtesan told him that he should bring precious gifts to her first
and change his appearance to look groomed. Siddhartha agreed.
Just before leaving, the courtesan felt compelled to try helping him out and asked what
his skills were. The answer stroke me as brilliant. “I can think, I can wait,
and I can fast.” I thought that it’s
exactly these skills which chess players also have.
Now that the tournament is over and I am back home for a few days, I’ll allow myself some time for these three occupations. I think there’s no problem whatsoever to have a bad event every now and then and I don’t mind to patiently wait for better times while living in my head for a little while in order to let my body and soul fast.
