I taught Krish, my grandson, how to play chess and he absolutely loves the game. I spent last weekend with him in Lafayette, CA and he came up to me with his eyes shining and asked, “Tatha, can we play some chess?”
So, we did.
He knows how the pieces move and the relative values of a queen, rook, bishop and knight but does not have a strategic grasp of the game. Every time he left one of his pieces en prise, I captured it.
I won the game we played and the next and the next.
He burst out crying. He sobbed. His chest heaved. “You play too hard, Tatha!” he exclaimed. “Can you play a little softer?”
My heart melted.
I played softer. He ‘won’ several games in a row. He was fascinated by pawn promotion and the notion that a lowly pawn could become a queen, the most powerful piece in the game. He gave up trying to corner my king and worked to promote his pawns. I helped him. In the next game he had five queens, and I had none.
I told him, truthfully, that I had never played a game where my opponent had five queens.
He was bouncing up and down with joy. He went to his mother and proudly told her, “I have five queens.” She was busy preparing dinner and told him that he was doing a fine job.
Krish came up to me and gave me a big hug.
It was a wonderful evening.
I was pensive. Soon Krish will learn to play better and understand the theory behind opening moves. He will play other kids who are also chess enthusiasts, and some will be better than him. They will not ‘play soft’ and he will lose. And I felt that pain now.
I have written about this in a previous blog.
Our society drills us into believing that ‘winning’ is good and ‘losing’ is bad. The winners get the spoils – the medals, the trophies, the prize money. The losers get to say a few words and are societally obliged to congratulate the winner, and they then slink away to be forgotten.
CEOs retire and find out that the jokes they tell are not that funny. Nobody laughs. And, very soon, nobody even listens.
Everyone fades into oblivion. Lee Iacocca was once the most acclaimed executive in America. Before him was Harold Geneen. After him was Jack Welch. They are all gone and the younger generation of business students barely recognize their names.
This is the way of life.
So, enjoy your success, but always bear in mind that it will pass. Keep your attention on your real nature, the Self. That is who you really are. You are not this body-mind-intellect complex that is elated by winning at one moment and dejected at losing the next.
You will forget. You will forget repeatedly.
Each time you remember that you have forgotten, bring it back to your focus that you are the Self. You are the observer of the drama that is unfolding in front of you. You are not the character in that drama, even though that is the role you are playing.
Now how and when do I get Krish to understand this?
I am still wrestling with this one.
Peace!
