Checkmate
M Alan Roberts

Overcoming strategic endeavors makes us grow as individuals. I play chess everyday. A game came built in on my computer. Anytime that I get tired from writing or pissed off thinking about the government, I play a game of chess. When I first realized it was there, and played my first game, I started on level five - thinking I was at least a mediocre player. My father taught me the basic moves when I was about five years old and I had played here and there since then (mostly whenever the government placed me in the county jail). So, I figured with my 35 years plus experience, I would fare well at level five. Long story short, I took a beating that nobody should ever have to endure.

Degraded, I dropped the game to level three. Got beat miserably. Determined, I set the game at level one and proceeded to play 200 games. That wasn't my plan, it was just that it took me 200 games to get my win level up to 25%. At that point, I switched up to level two - where I am now. I just now finished a game less than 5 minutes ago. Got beat miserably.

Stripped of my masculinity, I cursed the game (again), stabbed the red X in the upper right of my screen to close it, and hopelessly wondered how I will ever make it to level 10. Level 10! To me, right now, it seems that it will be impossible to ever reach that.

But, I know better.

It might take me one million games to be able to reach a 25% win ratio at level nine, but I know that I can do it - if I choose to. That is sort of like life isn't it? I mean, life involves strategy everyday. That is, for those of us who do not cower away from it. We are all amazing; we all have unlimited potential. I believe that when we feel that we are underneath of anything, we have to intentionally put forth the effort necessary to overcome our limitations. That way, they are not really limitations at all.

What if, in our lives, we were always afraid to try anything new - a new level? What if we thought that we couldn't possibly ever reach a certain level of performance? What if we never gave conscious thought to strategizing and trying to overcome obstacles? Our minds would cave in. My father used to tell me that, without regular stress, we would all go crazy. My father loved stress. I believe that he grew to love stress so dearly because he felt that anything so vile would surely destroy him if he did not embrace it thoroughly. We must embrace our enemies. We must strive to have no enemies. We must embrace what we disobey. Whatever complicates us, we have to blow it away - like the gnat that flies 1 inch from our lips.

Sometimes, I wonder which chess piece I would choose to be. Of course, the obvious thought is to always be the queen. She is the most versatile. She seems to have all the power. But, I am a man! I don't want to be a queen. What else then? The bottom line is that each piece has its own strengths and weaknesses. So does each human in existence have their own - and they vary from day to day! The best strategy - for chess as well as life itself - is case dependent. If we wish to grow, then we must keep our minds open. We must look in all directions and try to discern the path of least resistance to the greatest collective good.

The very thing that makes life tasty is finding a way through difficulties and emerging victorious. The only real way that you can be in a state of checkmate is to refuse to join the game.