e4

Today is a game of chess. Breakfast, shower, brush teeth. Book moves. Today can’t be beaten with brute force determination. A day unfolds at its own pace, event by event in shifting landscapes. Each step in its traversal influences its terraforming shape for thousands of steps ahead. Every new minute is born of one past. You will lose until you learn that the bad moves matter as much as the good ones. And even then you will still lose a portion of the time. Your opponents are powerful players and they are experts at getting inside your head. Their whispers are always lapping at your strength, eroding the shores of your concentration and battered judgement. They are simply the wrong sides of you, and their identical genetic makeup can cancel out every one of your efforts in exactly measured opposition. Strategy is all you have beyond this. Knowledge and consideration of basic truths. The immediate benefit can leave you open. The best moves come many previous moves in the making. It is tedious to get into the strongest positions. You have lost every game you have begun recklessly. You have lost every game you have moved straight for the exciting pieces, just to have them bounce off a brick wall. You have to think ahead. You have to adapt to the flowing change, it is not an inconvenience, it is a fact. Trading pieces just to progress the game will end with you losing out, even if it feels like it might be what you need – that sentiment is your opponent’s mind game.