I can't really write about a flashback, because I'm having a flashforward of how stressy everything is going to be tomorrow, and the next day, and the fact that I've got to start a course of penicillin, and what if I'm allergic to it and I get really ill, the horrible grasping at the throat when my airways close up oh GOD!
Hahahaha
That last (long) sentence was written partially tongue in cheek, but let's be honest, much of my life is spent worrying about things to come.
I've always maintained that it's the chess player's way of life. If you play chess, you are more likely to think "well, if THIS happens then THAT will happen, which means I'll have to do THIS, and then that will mean that THIS will need to be ready".
It's the sort of thing that you tend to find more with those of us who are chess players. I'm not saying that if you DON'T play chess then you WON'T think like that, but I think the nature of chess playing means that you're more likely to subsequently adopt that mode of thinking.
I used to teach chess to young people who had been excluded from school. I don't mean teach them in the sense that I am a grandmaster, I mean teach them the basics - literally, what a pawn does. What a knight does. What a rook does. And so on.
What I found, and what they found, I think, is that once you start looking at the world through those eyes, you find yourself thinking much more about consequences. For instance... if I steal that, then I might get caught, which will mean.... and so on. It was reasonably successful, I think, in challenging the ways the kids thought and how they acted, at least certainly with us.
Chess also has vaguely tenuous ties with martial arts. The discipline, the different styles, and of course the fact that not only does the Rza play chess (and a load of the WuTang Clan), but there was an incredibly dope film called The Mystery Of ChessBoxing, with one of the truly great martial arts villains, Ghost Faced Killer. (And yes, that's where the rapper got his name from.)
....not quite sure how I got from Flashback to Ghostface, but I think I've made my point. Whatever it was.
Hahahaha
That last (long) sentence was written partially tongue in cheek, but let's be honest, much of my life is spent worrying about things to come.
I've always maintained that it's the chess player's way of life. If you play chess, you are more likely to think "well, if THIS happens then THAT will happen, which means I'll have to do THIS, and then that will mean that THIS will need to be ready".
It's the sort of thing that you tend to find more with those of us who are chess players. I'm not saying that if you DON'T play chess then you WON'T think like that, but I think the nature of chess playing means that you're more likely to subsequently adopt that mode of thinking.
I used to teach chess to young people who had been excluded from school. I don't mean teach them in the sense that I am a grandmaster, I mean teach them the basics - literally, what a pawn does. What a knight does. What a rook does. And so on.
What I found, and what they found, I think, is that once you start looking at the world through those eyes, you find yourself thinking much more about consequences. For instance... if I steal that, then I might get caught, which will mean.... and so on. It was reasonably successful, I think, in challenging the ways the kids thought and how they acted, at least certainly with us.
Chess also has vaguely tenuous ties with martial arts. The discipline, the different styles, and of course the fact that not only does the Rza play chess (and a load of the WuTang Clan), but there was an incredibly dope film called The Mystery Of ChessBoxing, with one of the truly great martial arts villains, Ghost Faced Killer. (And yes, that's where the rapper got his name from.)
....not quite sure how I got from Flashback to Ghostface, but I think I've made my point. Whatever it was.
This is eerily similar to something I would flashback on; comparisons between chess and martial arts, the WuTang and teaching chess to youths.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed it, it was like listening to myself.
Brilliant.
Brilliant Jimmy :-)
ReplyDelete