If you are the one who is able to move without anticipation, stop reading, this is obviously not for you. This is only to and for gamers like me who, in whatever form of relationship (yeah! even with objects) not only find every move they make is with some anticipation, or expected outcome/response and cannot escape it.
Even my car has been found to not be not playing fair (which is the way I prefer to view it) or it is playing by some set of rules I both do not know and do not like. I don’t like to find out it has made the move from 4 fully inflated tires to only 3 when I approach it to go to work. My anticipated next move by an unanticipated prior move by this vehicle has now frustrated me. Of course you find this ridiculous, after all “stuff happens!” Yes, indeed it does. Stuff happens. And we can’t escape it…stuff is even happening right now, here on this page.
And if we can, let’s be honest. Oh, what a move that would be, no? But were we to say “I don’t like the game, I want out of the game” either because the rules do not follow my own prescription (which may be the utmost of honesty achievable in such a case) or worse, are of some variety I cannot even begin to fathom…what would our next move be? We’d also have to admit (would we?) we are willing to end any relationship to a thing called (for lack of a better word) serendipity. Are we prepared to make that move?
I could be wrong (ha ha, what an understatement) but I cannot help but think we very much like the game when it seems to favor us…but when it seems not to, as almost choosing us out too precisely for what we think is disfavor, certain dread thoughts may arise…the which, when considered long enough and deeply enough appear to lose some of that dreadness [sic] to even some appeal. We now “play” with that idea. And again, I could be wrong (haha! too much understatement?) but some have succumbed with some anticipation they can make a move out. Stop it all. They think they (or even some “we” if we have ever considered) can make it “all” stop. The ultimate and final move (or so we may think) to end all moves, and again, if I may…even clasp or grasp at some notion of its being our ultimate success. We make the move…that trumps all others.
But (may I say “again”?) we are thrust back into some place where honesty seems demanded. (Is that a dread enough location for you? It is for me!) is it because the rules do not follow our own prescription(frustration) …or they are according to something unfathomable to me, or us? (Also frustration)
If we say the first, we are admitting to much. But if we dare enter considering the other we might have to conclude that the rule we may think allows us “that final one” is again, only according to what we embrace as our own prescription of rule…and be quite non-plussed at the possibility that “that rule” also doesn’t apply. For if we are so frustrated at the rules being out of our hands and/or also unfathomable we cannot escape the very dread notion of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire…as real possibility. Yes, perhaps every move of ours is destined to frustration.
Is this too much? Too much for you? It surely is too much for me. It surely was too much for Hamlet. Whose ultimate conclusion, as tortured as it was, was this: “thus conscience doth make cowards of us all”. But that’s a strange thing, isn’t it…at least if you are passing familiar with the quote “To be or not to be…”
For towards its beginning there comes “whether tis nobler in the mind…” And that is the crux, isn’t it? If I say crux, is it too much associated (if you are not religious) with cross, that you find it distasteful? Well, I am not religious either. So “crux of the matter” it is. For it is the crux of the matter.
There is some impelling toward a doing of a right thing. Some impelling to an inner consistency, an integrity of being integrated in ourselves to right or rightness, that won’t leave us alone. To Shakespeare, by way of Hamlet, he declares it a nobility. On the one hand he concludes conscience makes cowards of us all, but how then on the other, in that this thing we may call conscience, that is that which informs toward a doing or being right (or noble in consistency)…a thing working to inform of nobility (is that good to you?) is also the very thing that brings about cowardice (is that bad, to you?)? Talk about being in a frustrating place! The very thing showing me (something of) nobility is the very thing that causes my cowardice!
Now listen. I am not interested in arguing for or against Shakespeare as an avatar of all thoughtful depth. He simply is one who “got it” to whatever measure he did. Some inkling of being in the frustration. Unless of course you think Hamlet is not a form of Shakespeare expressed…a mere construct with a “life of his own” to speak apart from Shakespeare. I don’t buy it. His character, Hamlet, is only speaking out a place Shakespeare knew in visitation. This inner battle of to be or not to be…that is bounded by a demand of rightness, a demand for nobility of mind…yes…even adherence to some form of truth to being compelled to a consistency with it. If indeed, all is fruitless and only all of suffering (for who would bear the whips and scorns of time…etc)…and death is the ultimate end of such grief, and is already assigned inescapable anyway, as in “life is hard and then you die” then “cutting right to the chase” would surely seem the rightest form of action. The most noble. The most consistent to that form of trueness (if that is all that is seen) that could align with conscience.
You don’t like this very much, do you? For it does eventually require a coming to that place of admission of all frustration. It’s easier to stop reading than to come there. It’s easier to stop thinking than to come there. It’s easier to either believe one can end it all in either taking a bare bodkin…or simply going about with enough distractions (that will themselves show all fruitlessness and frustration) than to consider. Don’t you have something better to do anyway than read this tripe?
You see, I know you already know. I am persuaded “it’s in there”. Yes, even the grandest seeming winners in life’s game, who have seemed to beat the odds in life’s lottery of being born smart, clever, wealthy, able of success according to some metric of it…know. Is it a legacy you are after? As though you will “live on” in memory? Is that your comfort…you can look past your own death…and see something? Ha! The sun is going out soon.
Make any move you will for yourself and find out. You can’t avoid the experiment. Be as benevolent or noble to yourself as you can be…and find out. Be as craven as you need be…and find out. It doesn’t much matter. There is nothing of will that can make the rules…your own.
And if by something (could it actually be a someone…a consciousness at work?) unfathomable to you, you are somehow brought to understand, somehow, to sense somehow, to know somehow, to some place where even deniability is itself denied to a perfect frustration…there’s good news.
And new it always is.
Play as much chess as is required…as is even appointed. Make your move anticipating what must be the responding move then found made, till you find out there are not merely a million countering possibilities…but all. And find you are not made for all…unless you are remade. Go to the doctor to make sure you are well…but…you may find anything but. Go to the brilliant to make sure you are smart and of their company…but you may find out…
Try to join to the successful…(as you see it or them)
Try to win. Is all.
The house rules are against us…our only hope is to talk to the builder.
Mine to.
But why, O why would you do such a thing?
Well, we’re talking ain’t we?
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;
For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.
One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.
And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
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