The Childhood of a Leader (brady corbet, 2015)
"You will get to where you're going, and I will play my part in that."
A chessboard contains 64 squares and 32 pieces. Each side (black and [versus] white) has 16 pieces that they play with. Those 16 pieces are made up of 6 individual piece types: 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, 1 queen, and 1 king. Each piece has its own unique way of moving around the board. The aim of the game is to capture the king. To prevent it from being able to move. The game is all about the king, but it is the queen that holds all the power.
It was my mother who taught me how to play chess, but I spent most of my childhood not playing chess. You play to win, and as a child I simply wasn't cognisant enough to beat an adult at the game. I could beat a child, but hell, I was a child, so where was the fun in that? And besides. There didn't seem to be any children around in those days.
Instead I lived in a world of adults. A world of conversation and smoking and cars and newspapers and so on and so forth. There were no other children. There were games, to be sure, but not play. And that's an important distinction.
And so I learned how the world of adults worked. Or, to be more precise, I was a child at odds with the world of adults. I wasn't strong enough or smart enough to beat them at games of skill or physical prowess. I wasn't interested in the kinds of things that they were interested in. And so I learned to excel in other ways. Quiet ways. Stubborn ways. Ways that I learned I could win. My father had no idea what he was getting involved in.
To my father, children inhabited a physical world of play. But this was not where I dwelled. And he simply wasn't prepared for the battle of wills that would emerge if I felt I was being undermined, mistreated, not heard, or so on. I would sit, for hours, eyes locked with his while a bowl of ice cream sat in front of me. Melting. His latest attempt to curry sympathy for something I had decided was against the rules of how I wanted to be treated. Nay, *should* be treated. I knew that he wanted me to eat the ice cream. To savour it, and to enjoy it. And to be able to reset our relationship. But I *knew* he wanted this. And therefore I denied him this. I had learned that although I may not have been smart enough or strong enough, I could be wilful enough. Nay, *was* wilful enough. I spent days in complete silence. Not uttering a 'hello' or a 'thank you' or an anything. With the benefit of hindsight, this probably created an unnecessarily negative experience of parenthood for my father, but I find it hard to muster up much sympathy for him. It's all a matter of discernment. R.C. Sproul said we're not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. In more accessible terms, we're not evil because of the evil we do, but we do evil because we *are* evil. But where is evil in all the wood?
My father was a hammer. To bring a wall to the ground he would pound away at it until it was dust. But my mother was something else. My mother was a tree that would somehow work its way into the brickwork, becoming part of it, and then tearing it down from inside. My games of playing the part of a brick wall were simple when played against my father, but far more complicated when played against my mother. She knew better than to try to hammer the wall down. Kierkegaard was right, there is an awful precipice before us. But he was wrong about the leap, there's a difference between jumping and being pushed.
Let's return to the chessboard.
There are those who play with the simple understanding that the queen holds all the power. They bring their queen out early, and use it to run rings around the lesser pieces. They use the queen to keep their opponent on edge, ensuring that they understand the threat present when such a powerful piece is on the move, in the open, able to strike at any moment. They repeatedly bring the queen in to attack, and then pull it back to safety. Again and again. Using the queen much like a hammer, to strike repeatedly against their opponent's defence. To decimate. You see this tactic often in those who are unable to think several moves ahead of their opponent. This is not only how they play chess, this is also how they live their lives, using the same simple tactics time after time. Existence is the search for relief from our habit, and our habit is the only relief we can find. Their game is a simple one, and their adherence to employing the same means is their weakness.
And then there are those who play a different game, who understand the importance of sacrifice. Those who use the lives of their stronger pieces, including the queen, to lull their opponent into a false sense of security. Those who use the greed and emotions of their opponent. Those who secretly encourage their opponent to make the moves that they want them to make. Only to reveal a previously unseen series of moves, and to end up holding all the advantage, all the power. This kind of play often employs pawn promotion. Sacrificing stronger pieces with the intention of then moving a pawn to your opponent's side, at which point you can swap the pawn for a piece of your choosing. It's a rare game when someone does not promote a pawn to a queen.
And this is something worth bearing in mind. That with foresight, and by keeping ahead of other people, and by not playing the hammer, you can get to a point at which the lowliest of all pieces, the simplest of all concepts, transforms into that which holds all the power. To face what we are in the end, we stand before the light and our true nature is revealed. Self-revelation is annihilation of self. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Essence is revealed through praxis. The philosopher's words, his ideas, his actions, cannot be separated from his value, his meaning.
A chessboard contains 64 squares and 32 pieces. Each side (black and [versus] white) has 16 pieces that they play with. Those 16 pieces are made up of 6 individual piece types: 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, 1 queen, and 1 king. Each piece has its own unique way of moving around the board. The aim of the game is to capture the king. To prevent it from being able to move. The game is all about the king, but it is the queen that holds all the power.
It was my mother who taught me how to play chess, but I spent most of my childhood not playing chess. You play to win, and as a child I simply wasn't cognisant enough to beat an adult at the game. I could beat a child, but hell, I was a child, so where was the fun in that? And besides. There didn't seem to be any children around in those days.
Instead I lived in a world of adults. A world of conversation and smoking and cars and newspapers and so on and so forth. There were no other children. There were games, to be sure, but not play. And that's an important distinction.
And so I learned how the world of adults worked. Or, to be more precise, I was a child at odds with the world of adults. I wasn't strong enough or smart enough to beat them at games of skill or physical prowess. I wasn't interested in the kinds of things that they were interested in. And so I learned to excel in other ways. Quiet ways. Stubborn ways. Ways that I learned I could win. My father had no idea what he was getting involved in.
To my father, children inhabited a physical world of play. But this was not where I dwelled. And he simply wasn't prepared for the battle of wills that would emerge if I felt I was being undermined, mistreated, not heard, or so on. I would sit, for hours, eyes locked with his while a bowl of ice cream sat in front of me. Melting. His latest attempt to curry sympathy for something I had decided was against the rules of how I wanted to be treated. Nay, *should* be treated. I knew that he wanted me to eat the ice cream. To savour it, and to enjoy it. And to be able to reset our relationship. But I *knew* he wanted this. And therefore I denied him this. I had learned that although I may not have been smart enough or strong enough, I could be wilful enough. Nay, *was* wilful enough. I spent days in complete silence. Not uttering a 'hello' or a 'thank you' or an anything. With the benefit of hindsight, this probably created an unnecessarily negative experience of parenthood for my father, but I find it hard to muster up much sympathy for him. It's all a matter of discernment. R.C. Sproul said we're not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. In more accessible terms, we're not evil because of the evil we do, but we do evil because we *are* evil. But where is evil in all the wood?
My father was a hammer. To bring a wall to the ground he would pound away at it until it was dust. But my mother was something else. My mother was a tree that would somehow work its way into the brickwork, becoming part of it, and then tearing it down from inside. My games of playing the part of a brick wall were simple when played against my father, but far more complicated when played against my mother. She knew better than to try to hammer the wall down. Kierkegaard was right, there is an awful precipice before us. But he was wrong about the leap, there's a difference between jumping and being pushed.
Let's return to the chessboard.
There are those who play with the simple understanding that the queen holds all the power. They bring their queen out early, and use it to run rings around the lesser pieces. They use the queen to keep their opponent on edge, ensuring that they understand the threat present when such a powerful piece is on the move, in the open, able to strike at any moment. They repeatedly bring the queen in to attack, and then pull it back to safety. Again and again. Using the queen much like a hammer, to strike repeatedly against their opponent's defence. To decimate. You see this tactic often in those who are unable to think several moves ahead of their opponent. This is not only how they play chess, this is also how they live their lives, using the same simple tactics time after time. Existence is the search for relief from our habit, and our habit is the only relief we can find. Their game is a simple one, and their adherence to employing the same means is their weakness.
And then there are those who play a different game, who understand the importance of sacrifice. Those who use the lives of their stronger pieces, including the queen, to lull their opponent into a false sense of security. Those who use the greed and emotions of their opponent. Those who secretly encourage their opponent to make the moves that they want them to make. Only to reveal a previously unseen series of moves, and to end up holding all the advantage, all the power. This kind of play often employs pawn promotion. Sacrificing stronger pieces with the intention of then moving a pawn to your opponent's side, at which point you can swap the pawn for a piece of your choosing. It's a rare game when someone does not promote a pawn to a queen.
And this is something worth bearing in mind. That with foresight, and by keeping ahead of other people, and by not playing the hammer, you can get to a point at which the lowliest of all pieces, the simplest of all concepts, transforms into that which holds all the power. To face what we are in the end, we stand before the light and our true nature is revealed. Self-revelation is annihilation of self. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Essence is revealed through praxis. The philosopher's words, his ideas, his actions, cannot be separated from his value, his meaning.