Trying New Things

I don’t have to reiterate the last 10 posts or however many I have by saying that Go and everyday life have a ridiculous amount in common, but I guess I did anyway.

Trying new things in life is exciting, but of course all new things have the possibility of just not being for you at all. This happen in go also. When I spent some time trying to test out some openings I hadn’t previously known much about, I found out some important things about my personality. The first of these, and arguably the most important, was that, I don’t like losing things.

I know that’s a silly thing to say, no one likes losing things, but I should clarify. I don’t like spending a lot of time and careful consideration to give myself a happy little home on a part of the board only to have the home skitter away for no reason that is readily apparent. Still, this happens a lot to me in go, and, recently, in life as well.

But, through all my best efforts, I don’t know why I sometimes lose things so easily. Do I take them for granted and, looking recklessly forward, accidentally put them in a pocket I know to have a hole in it? Or do they themselves change from precious stones to sand and fall from my hands? This is one of those situations I hope to solve before it’s too late, but in this case, I feel like I should solve it from go to life, and not starting in the real world. Perhaps I should be more flexible, letting happiness come as it goes and spinning with the world around me. Or maybe I should prepare more steadfastly and make myself stronger and more capable of holding onto things.

To me, both seem possible, but neither seems wonderful. Maybe splitting the difference will give me the best of both worlds; but, it might also give me nothing but a lot of wasted effort and a pair of shoes with a pile of sand on them.

So, maybe by trying new things in go, I’ll learn more about these possibilities. In life, however, a new adventure is rarely something we can conjure up, and even when we can, not quite what it is meant to be without a fitting companion.

Here, however, I find I am rarely planning a post, but rather just rambling loose philosophies, letting my mind wander. So, I’d like to know, what would you, the few people who actually load this up and read, like to read about? Of course, I ask that, whatever you ask, I can make it about go, but you don’t need to specifically ask about go.

Go and Anger

Go is a meditative activity for many, but at its core, meditation itself is more than just peace and harmony. Sure, silencing one’s mind brings peace and harmony to the mind and body, but the act of looking inward and attempting to quiet the thoughts of a long day in a harsh world is not always a calming experience.

Suppose for a moment that you knew nothing of meditation, and, as a symbol for this alienness, it was being explained to you by an alien. It spoke of embracing ones thoughts whole heartedly and then releasing them. Then, suppose that this meditation was much more extreme in its effects. And in a moment, the thought you embraced consumed you.

In the attempt to shut off your mind by playing a simple game of go with a fellow peaceful opponent, you may come across some anger, in your own mind. When you are playing go, everything you have is focused on the board, and so the embracing of a though comes naturally, but the letting go may not, especially with anger, the essence of which is failing to let go. Then, anger begets more anger, hate more hate, and soon you are angry with yourself and your moves and your opponents, and everything and everyone who could possibly have anything to do with this particular game of go.

How do we let go of anger? If my blog could answer that, not only would it be much more popular, but much more important to our whole race.

For now, the best we can do is hope that when we push the anger out, it doesn’t fall on the board. But of course, all we are is the go we play, so that’s not really possible. As Tommy Chong once said “You just gotta exorcise your demons, man.” One might believe that, as darkness is but the absence of light, anger is but the absence of contentment. However, that can’t be the whole story. I, content with a great many things in my life, find myself upset about others. Must I really sort out everything within my life or abandon it to play content Go? My most recent games seem to support that theory, and in my discontent I’ve played some awful games. Perhaps I will share games in these posts from now on (but surely not these most recent awful games) through some kind of SGF editor (Ben? any tips?)