Draws

There's the confidence to think you'll win, but then again choosing whether to accept a draw is a different confidence based on material, position and strategy.

I play 1-10 games a day, usually more towards 2-4. I've won a lot of games by just being persistent and keep on going even if I lose my queen. I've lost a lot of games too, and I don't get too sore losing, but it does sting quite a lot, so the desire to win versus the desire to just play are in competition. 

I like the psychology of juggling various strategies and ways of being in chess.

I saw a post on r/Buddhism questioning whether a Buddhist should play chess:

"I'm a Buddhist and I play chess. Should someone closer to the goal stop playing chess? I don't think you're close to the goal, so maybe worry when you get closer. Faking it till you make it? Well, if you want to quit chess, quit chess. I don't think that will make you enlightened, enlightenment is brought about by meditation, study, friendship and fellowship, devotion and ethics."

My reply:

The mind is overclocked. Humans peacock feathers is the mind, it's too powerful for what it does. The mind needs some activity. I find chess wholesome. Of all the things I could do, it's relatively free of negative harm. The electricity to play on my phone is slight, mental energy is great, but I have some to spare, and time--I have plenty of time it just so happens. 

I mean if you're close to enlightenment, maybe, but honestly if you asking the question online, I can't imagine you really are close to enlightenment. You need friends to support you on the hard journey, and asking this question online suggests maybe you don't have close spiritual friends, because they'd tell you not to worry. Perhaps faking it till you make it is a good strategy at times, but honestly I feel like of all the things you can do, chess is pretty wholesome. Humans need their ego, when the ego fails, that's often mental health issues. The ego death of deep meditation and a deep spiritual life, IMHO is temporary, sporadic, and ego talk usually is just aping what other people say, without the experience to back it up. This kind of killing of a passtime isn't the path as far as I can tell. Seems like a misuse of the thinking. Or maybe I just like chess too much and you're more realized than I am. Who knows. I'm going to stick with my instinct that chess is a wholesome pastime, doesn't harm my spiritual life. On a side note, I play chess after meditating and I usually lose, I'm not ambitious enough, maybe I need to be more neurotic to win.

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