The Life Gambit

 

We have all kinds of definition for ‘Life’. Some define it as a ‘journey’. Other sees it as a ‘battleground’.

As for me, I see it as simple as a chess game.

Chess, the royal game of kings, is a game which is played on a 64-checkered board. The objective of the game is to beat our opponent by checkmating his king. Two armies, the White pieces, and the Black pieces, battles for supremacy over the board.

That’s how I see life. Each player starts of with an equal material. 8 Pawns.  A pair of Rooks, Bishops and Knights. One Queen. One King. One objective. Most people are born with equal ‘material’. One life. One objective.

Chess has it’s own theory. As do life. In chess, you must make concession in order to gain something. Whether you conceded something good to obtain something worst, or vice-versa, is totally up to you. If I starts the game by moving my pawn to the e4 square, I gave up the pawn’s control over the f3 square in order to gain control the d5 square. d5, being one of the central square, is much more valuable in the beginning of the game as compared to the f3 square. Thus, this is a good concession.

That’s life, too.

We gave up our control over something in order to gain another. Whether it is a good concession or not, that is up to your knowledge on the theory of life.

In chess, we were taught to think before we make our move. We do not make a move until we see it. Thus, we are obligated to think thoroughly about ALL of the choices of moves we can make because once the move is executed, there is no way back.

That’s life, too.

We should think before we do anything, be it a physical action of the body or the movement of the tongue. Once it is done, there is no way back. We cannot undo the things that we have done, be it good or bad.

In chess, we must study the theories and lessons from previous Grandmasters in order to play a better game. We must understand the theories in order to make a full judgment over the position. Some position requires a deep positional of re-positioning your pieces to a better square, some position requires a bloodbath of sacrifices in order to gain the upper hand.

That’s life, too.

We must study the theories of life given by our previous forefathers. We must understand their lessons in order to fully make a sound judgment about choices that we have in life. We must make sure that we do not repeat the same mistakes our forefathers have made, if there is any at all.

In chess, we are taught that the King’s safety is the top-most priority. There is no point in having 4 Queens if your King is checkmated. You will still lose the game.

That’s life, too.

We are taught that there are priorities in life. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices in order to make sure that we’ve fulfilled our priorities in life.

In chess, we are all taught that we are responsible for the moves that we’ve made. We do not blame the spectators, the arbiters, the opponents, or anything, just to justify our mistakes. We must point the finger to ourselves and admits that we made a mistake on board and study back our games so that we do not repeat the same mistakes again. If we do not acknowledge our mistakes, we shall never become a better player in the game of chess.

That, my friend, is life, too.

We are all to be held responsible for any actions that we have made. We are all to be held responsible for words spoken from our tongue. Pointing it to others shows that we are nothing but a selfish and arrogant being. If we do not acknowledge our mistakes, we shall never become a better player in the game of life.

In chess, I choose the Ruy Lopez, the Sicilian Defense, the Grunfeld and the King’s Indian Defense as my main theories. I choose Robert James “Bobby” Fischer as my references in order to understand fully these vast theories of chess.

I choose Islam as my theory of life. I choose Muhammad s.a.w as my references in order to understand the vast theory of life.

The game of life has started.  I’ve made my move. The clock has been pressed, and the clock is ticking.

Your move.

6 comments

  1. a very interesting view . . im resharing this on Twitter and Tumblr

    thanks for the good read.

    i’ll give you a B+ because:
    1) you wouldn’t get cocky
    2) you would improve
    3) its a B+ . . . Be Positive. Get it??? hahahahaahahh . . .you dont? Well, i do. And that is what counts the most . . .

  2. A talent in writing you have there Justin. Love what you wrote.. Especially because it’s got something to do with chess.

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