Lessons from a chess board

"Said a wise man: life is a chessboard of nights and days. Where God, using men as his pawns, plays. Hither and thither moves, and checkmate, and slays, and one by one he places them back in the box. For each pawn has its fate, as does each player, as does God. Fate will be met."

The discussion began on an ideal cloudless night, the molecules in the atmosphere ceased vibrating and the cold wind sent occasional shivers back your spine. It was the perfect setup after one heck of a month, living at a graveyard and returning to heaven. Spending time with your friends , moving around the lake and chatting. The perfect setup for a relaxing chill out.

Now the twist in the almost perfect scenario came when one of my friends commented on the discussion of life, having learnt something from the game of chess. Now I call it the twist because, for me it was like a brilliant blind man trying to describe a painter the vivid colors of nature. 

Not only his statement shook me up, it made me realize people change every moment, all you have to do is empty your cache memory full of perceptions.

He said “A game of chess, like life, requires you to take a single move at a time. If you plan the future move and all you think of is playing that killer move, you miss out on the present moves of the opposition, defending your king and on most cases you tend to lose the game. Hence even in life it is more important to take single move at a time instead of planning the future.”

Now having passionately played chess myself, I told myself that is a very apt simile. I wondered how much there is to learn and relate from small things such as a game of chess. That night It got me thinking that chess aint a mere game. It holds great Morales for a person to learn. Moreover it also describes one of the fundamental facts that many people fail to look at. Although the game ends when a king dies, a king can only move one step at a time. Whereas the queen can roam around the entire board as she wishes and even if she dies the game moves on! :|

Now other thing to learn from a game of chess is that all the pawns are born similarly. All have the same capabilities. All are born on the same rank and all have the same properties. All have 6 steps in front of them to transform into something majestic. Yet in most of the games only a few reach that rank. Some of them gets killed in the process. Rest get stuck up and render pointless in the game. Although the pawn on reaching that rank may boast amongst his fellowmen, for the player playing this game it is mere amusement. For him it is irrespective which pawn stays in the game, which gets killed. All are a part of the game and are only there for the master to win the game, Regardless which die, left pointless, or progress ahead.

A Famous Italian Proverb-

"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go in the same box."

Isnt it true at the end of the day we all have to head to the same metallic box. No matter what gender, race, caste, income, religion we belong to at the end it all comes to whether we have helped the master win the game. In the real world helping the master win the game would indicate –Being a part in making earth a better place. Or as they say today “BEING HUMAN”.

Well I guess, there are loads to learn, from small things in life.There would always be someone who could think diffrently. And that reminds me of a David freeman quote.

"The more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know — the less you know, the more you think you know.”