"Life is like Playing a Violin Solo in Public and Learning the Instrument as We Go Along." - Samuel Butler
When you play a game of chess, the best chess players don't focus on finding checkmates in the first few moves. They plan their moves by developing their pieces so that they'll be advantageous at the endgame.
It's the basics of chess. But that got me wondering, "What makes a World Chess Champion special?" Every single player starts with the same pieces as the Chess Champion, 1 King, 1 Queen, 2 Knights, 2 Bishops, 2 Rooks and 8 Pawns.
In the hands of a World Champion the pieces come to life and you see a battlefield, completely different from the way a 5-Year Old manages their pieces. That still doesn't answer the question.
Theoretically you can do every single move that the World Chess Champion does, all he does is pick up a piece and put it down. What is it that makes him so special?
If you look closer, and study his moves. It's a delicate secret but it's his ability to understand which moves are meaningful, and how he chooses to spend his moves. That's the single defining trait that separates a World Chess Champion and the 2nd Place. It's being able to understand what's the best move to invest your turn into.
It's not too different from life. Except in Life we are forced to play the game as we learn it. We are all born as babies, with nothing except our mind. Some of us are born with silver spoons and wooden spoons in our mouths.
Some people who were raised with a Wooden spoons end up feeding their children with a Golden spoons. Some people who were raised with a Golden Spoon soon find themselves eating from a Wooden Spoon.
One must wonder, What separates the places people end up in? I had to conclude that it's the same reason that the World Champion in Chess is the World Champion.
It's the ability to evaluate their choices and then proceed to make them. In simpler terms, it's the ability to make wise decisions with our time.
But this is an oversimplification! The real world is much more cruel. In Chess turns can be taken back, we have time to analyze our situation, we start with fair pieces, we can play another game, we understand the clearly defined rules, white and black pieces are always the same, there is a clear objective in the game.
Life's turns can never be taken back, a Queen loss is loss for good. We are given no time for Analysis. Time like a watch will always tick forward waiting for no one. Not everyone starts with the same pieces, some only have pawns, while others have a slew of queens. We aren't given the rules in life, we have to find them ourselves; They are Obtuse and Vague. We don't get to play another life, a blunder in this life is a blunder we have to carry. Our opponents are not always fighting on the fairground and there is no clear objective to life.
Life begins to look a lot more bleak.
But doesn't that make it exciting? The stakes are so high now. Mistakes are detrimental, yet the victory tastes so much sweeter. Everything feels more real. Actions can't be taken back, the game begins to gain meaning.
That's the beauty of it. The most beautiful part? We still get to make choices which can lead us to where we want to go. For us, it's simple.
We want to Siphon Resources from Earth to Inkosyth, but a World Champion doesn't start at finding Checkmates. They start at finding the best pieces to develop.
That's what I'm doing now. My sister is already in school and I'm back in the library reading books. It's an entirely different world, and I don't start with any pieces. I have to begin by crafting my pieces that I'll use on the board.
The real world is funner that way. We can craft pieces and the first piece I needed to craft was influence.