Chess Pieces

Life is like a board game. Every movement we make, every thought we have, every decisions we make and every actions we carry out, they are like pieces on a board of chess game, or perhaps like strategies in a game of Go. Description of life, as time ticks away, can best be mirrored by strategic games.

Yes, we all plan our moves. But as the Joker says in The Dark Night movie, when we upset the order, the result is just chaos. It is, in some sense, true. Everything we do, we justify our actions and convince ourselves that these are planned actions with foreseeable results.

However, how many times have our planned course of action produced the desired results? Be honest. As for me, not many of my plans went well. Nevertheless, we cannot blame God, ourselves or the exogenous factors such as the people around us for everything that goes awry. These are after all, valuable experience and lessons in life that can be used to make better informed decisions at various decision nodes in any strategic decision making in the future.

I admit I do not know what I am doing in certain segments of my personal life, adoption of specific political ideology, future of my studies etc. I also cannot deny the fact that a once clear path of my future is now a little bit misty, foggy, and clouded with secrecy and uncertainty.

But that intrigues me. I want to walk down the path, though slowly, to see what is there for me to explore and to experience. The chess pieces that I move, the beads of Go that I place, and the uncertainty of my life path, have piled pressure on me to move in ways that nobody can understand.

We all might not understand why I am doing this, or why you are doing that. We all might not understand why I am saying this, why you are saying that. We all might not know why I see things this way, and why you see things the other way. We never know until the end result is shown. Then only we will know why things have happened that way.

As seconds go by, we make our moves and decisions for the moment with a desired outcome in mind and in our prayer. But have we not thought that even the happiest and care free person in the world makes decisions?

He or she has to make decisions every day. And no, he or she is not carefree. Being a rational person, every single one of us (even the most care free person in the world) makes decision based on historical information. We weigh our options and decide which is best for us to pick. We can only do so based on previous experiences.

Yes. And that is how I make my decisions. Pardon me if the words I use are not melodies to your ears. Forgive me if my actions are not what you would like. Teach me if what I have done is wrong. If I have done right things in your opinion, then praise me, pat my back and motivate me.

After saying all these, the phrase “someday we will all understand” bears a lot of meaning and weights that can make one ponder the whole day about matters related to life. And that is what I did with this phrase today.