Bleeding out our Reflections

I find that in hidden moments and in set aside moments…I find that in conversation…and especially in those moments when I’m alone and slightly gazing at an expanding scene. In these times artistry really takes the theme. My experience resonates with music. I notice the intricacy, the beauty, and the over-arching essence of that very experience that unfolds before me. This, to me, is when I am absorbed in artistry. It is a moment (or series of moments) when I consider artistry, at the fore of my consciousness.

In constradistinction, when I am involved in thinking: Especially in projects, in philosophy, in family, in friends, in heated intellection, I constantly consider strategy. Strategy has been playing a larger and larger role in my life because I have been studying board games. But it’s certainly not as pedestrian or adolescent as it sounds. Strategy fascinates me endlessly. Now, artistry is inherent to my process and occurs spontaneously, but strategy is something I need to pursue in order to preserve. Here’s a few things that fascinate me.

1. Differences in board games and the mentalities from these different styles. Check this out…I think Western chess is a largely offensive game, whereas Chinese (xiangqi) is equally offensive-defensive, and Japanese (shogi) is largely defensive. Just by pieces on the board they create that much difference! One set of parameters generates a whole range of patterns. What does that mean about having a flexible mind? What does that mean about how your thinking is affected by your environment and its parameters? How do you problem solve amidst this (type of) universe? And all this only makes me want to train my mind more. It makes me want to meditate more, and to study more. As innocent as it sounds, I want to be better at chess! (but that’s not the only factor at play here, indeed)

2. What IS possibility?!? A fundamental question one need ask in one’s next chess move is “What are the possibilities?” But to ask…what is this whole idea of possibility? Vacancy fascinates me. When I look at the chess board I see the empty slots where the piece can go. I see the 4 directions that a rook can glide along. The invisible lines jump out from the board at me, telling me that these empty slots can be filled. It makes me contemplate the unknown, it makes me contemplate the “slot” (in its most poetic sense). And all this can arise on such a simple small slit of existence I like to call a “strategy board”. As the emptiness jumps from 2-D into my eyes, the board becomes a “contemplation board”. Contemplate possibility in the face of reality…

3. Neural pathways are reworked when totally new situations occur. I am forced to think in new ways when the whole configuration of the board appears in a way I’ve never seen it before. This is a strange feeing to describe, especially when it is sometimes abrupt and immediate and jarring and exhilirating. The best way I can describe it is that my mind is twisted. You know that feeling when you learn something new, or somebody tells you something (it could just be in the verbage) that flips your way of thinking about something on its head? And then that feeling where your present awareness has to deal with how to integrate this new thing into your brain structure, and then you have to function on that? It all happens quite quickly, and is sometimes unnoticed because you’re in the midst of it…This all intrigues me for some reason. And as I said, it’s exhilirating.

4. But why do I want to preserve strategic thinking? If as Ta-Hui says…”(Scholarship hampers the achievement of awakening)” than why would something so contrary to that statement be worth cultivating? In part, I have a firm belief in communicating clearly. But it doesn’t just end there. There are many significant, even poignant, reasons. The one that stands out most to me is artistry! You guys should all check out Magister Ludi by Hermann Hesse. It’s an amazing text. About a world where there is a game called the glass bead game. The elites of that era play it integrating their genius surrounding knowledge, aesthetic, poetic, etc.-> They are all versed in philosophy, music, poetry, literature, etc. I think board games are so subtly linked with music, and poetry and all of that. I’m still discovering why though, and that’s what makes it potent.

I hope that is satisfactory for now.