THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHESS || SOMETHING I LEARNT FROM THE GAME OF CHESS || KASHISH GUPTA

 Learning is a process that literally requires nothing but a will and desire to learn. Life itself is the biggest teacher one ever got and hence each and every situation, consequence, experience, regret, pleasure, deception, etc comes with some learnings and new lessons each and every time. The only thing essential to extract the best lesson of it requires your keen ability to learn. Well, the same goes with games and sports too. Games and sports lay the foundation stone of learning for a child as well as an adult. Games hold a strong potential to teach you numerous life lessons like leadership qualities, friendliness, intelligent decisions, hard work, continuous efforts, etc. So today we gonna talk about one of my favourite games i.e Chess and some of the lessons, I learnt from the game of chess.

I've been playing chess since childhood and it's been more than a decade since I started playing it. Initially, it was all about the game and nothing else but with time, I eventually realised the hell out of it and literally analysed the real importance of this game and its applicability in real life. The game of chess is truly full of life lessons and you can undoubtedly apply each lesson in your life to shape your life effectively. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHESS

The whole philosophy of chess is based on positional analysis and strategic response. Your every move decides your fate in the game of chess. Your strategic response to the opponent's move can be advantageous and at the same time, it can be detrimental as well. Likewise, in your life, each decision decide your fate and shape your life accordingly.

In chess, you must outsmart your opponent to defeat him and never let your unawareness dominate you. You need to forge yourselves in the aptest mould without letting the injudicious airs of your opponent affect you anyhow. Just one mistake and boom, an unexpected defeat. 

SOMETHING I LEARNT FROM THE CHESS

Apart from enjoying this game, I learned a lot from this game and I'm gonna share some lessons I learned from playing chess that somehow made a great impact on my life on a personal as well as social level. So without a further delay let's hoop into a few of them.

ANTICIPATION IS POWERFUL

Prediction is a powerful tool. Once your analysis is favoured by your predictions, then the amount of self-esteem and confidence that apparently develops within you is far beyond imagination. You literally start comprehending your worth. The whole game of chess is based on the anticipation of the next move either yours or your opponents'. If your anticipation is appropriate and well analysed, you gonna break the game and if not, congrats you entrapped yourself into the pit of losing the game or you just let the opponent have the advantage to take over the control of the whole game.

Our actions are truly based on consequences. We are literally programmed in the way that caring about the results eventually limits our abilities and sometimes even prevents us from big repercussions as well and it's quite often considered as a blessing. Hence anticipation of the next move while taking consequences of the same into consideration and then acting accordingly is stepwise progress towards a better game of chess and life as well.

YOUR ENEMY IS THE STRONGEST

 If you're strong then always consider your enemy the strongest. We often become overconfident and hence pave the way towards defeat and resentment, so instead of dwelling oneself in the well of failure and despair, one must practice and perform by taking the strongest side of the opponent into consideration. Treating the opponent weak usually surprise us with something unexpected, unplanned and unsolicited outcomes. We can't imagine what a person is hiding behind the mask, so, it's better to bleed on the practice field than to suffer in the real battle. 

MISTAKES PAVE THE WAY TOWARD DEFEAT 

Now we're taught that mistakes are good as mistakes lead us towards progress and realisations, help us improve ourselves and let us experience life with a whole new spectrum and that's true but, we also can't avoid the fact that mistakes somehow act as a barrier that is literally hindering the progress and delaying the achievements. Sometimes a single mistake is big enough to cost huge damage. A wrong decision is capable enough of pushing your life towards misery and suffering. Mistakes perhaps teach a lot but at the same time, they may bring some irreversible damages that eventually result in ruination. 

In the game of chess, each and every move is associated with multiple consequences. Just a single move can decide your victory as well as defeat, so a simple mistake is worthy enough of turning the tables.

GO WITH THE FLOW AND ACT ACCORDINGLY

No matter how hard you prepared, how many times you practised or how efficient and smart you are, your opponent may be always a step ahead. You can control your moves but what about the moves of your opponent?

Well, you can't do anything about his moves but the good thing is, you can control your very own moves. You can adjust your move accordingly. You can change your strategies, actions, moves, etc with respect to the moves of your opponents. Similarly in life, you need to be flexible and adjust yourself according to the circumstances. Not everything goes planned in life. Facing unexpected twists in life is not something to be astonished by. So the best way of handling every situation is to go with the flow. Let life brings you anything cause you're prepared to face the same with the best weapons. 

RESPECT EVERYONE

Valuing everyone in life is one of the ultimate lessons, I learnt from chess. From pawns to Queen, all work in coordination in order to save the King and help you reach victory. Each sacrifice counts and is proved to have a huge impact on the game. So you need to treat the pawn, the same way you treat your queen. In life, you need people to grow and prosper. From parents to friends to society, each one of them plays a crucial role in life. It's better to treat everyone with respect and dignity. 

In short, chess is more like a book with numerous life lessons than just a game for fun. 

Thanks for the read!

INFINITE TSUKUYOMI - THE IDEA OF UTILITARIANISM || MADARA UCHIHA - NARUTO SHIPPUDEN

Imagine living a life free of futility, misery, resentment, guilt, rejections and sorrows. A life, where you are free to fulfil all your desires and live with peace and prosperity. No hatred, No loathe, No despise, only happiness and peace. Well, that goes synonymous with the idea of Utilitarianism and Infinite Tsukuyomi.

People who've already watched Naruto Shippuden must aware of the term Infinite Tsukuyomi. The core of the whole anime was this idea of Infinite Tsukuyomi. For those who've no idea what Infinite Tsukuyomi is, lemme introduce you to the idea of Infinite Tsukuyomi in the first place. So Infinite Tsukuyomi was nothing but an illusion, a dream where people were entrapped, living their life of fantasies and desires. Everything they ever desired was achieved in this state of illusion. Reality is harsh and full of misery, so, living in a state of illusion with all desires fulfilled, all dreams achieved and no mark of war and bloodshed was the ultimate goal of Infinite Tsukuyomi.                                                                         

The whole concept of Infinite Tsukuyomi was based on the idea of Utilitarianism. It simply represents a morality that fosters happiness and opposes everything that causes harm or unhappiness. It is a form of consequentialism, that holds the choice of producing the greatest good for the greatest number.

INFINITE TSUKUYOMI AND MADARA UCHIHA

Infinite Tsukuyomi is the genjutsu that entraps the entire world in an illusion, where people are enslaved in a dream. Madara dreamt of ending the wars and bloodshed of the whole shinobi universe so that everyone could live a peaceful life. Well, this wasn't possible in a world full of hatred and despise. Later he discovered that by the possession of Rinnegan and Ten tails, he can summon the Divine tree and cast Infinite Tsukuyomi and then after entrapping the whole world in a dream-like state, fulfilling their all desires, he could finally bring an end to their miseries. All this costs the absorption of their chakra. According to Madara, this was the idea of creating a perfect world. 

FLAWS

Perhaps the idea of Infinite Tsukuyomi sounds quite fascinating and interesting like living a dream life, fulfilling all desires, no sorrows, and so on and so forth. But don't you think this kind of happiness is unjust. Madara wanted to make peace in the whole world without caring for the freedom and choices of others.

This whole idea considers happiness as something with an intrinsic value and it's for the happiness of people everything goes fair. Their consent, will, choices, etc don't matter at all. All that matters is the state of happiness though achieved in the form of an illusion. In simple words, it was like living a dream life with no will and choices. It completely exterminates the concept of ''Individual Rights''.

It may be a reason-based approach to provide happiness but it costs the liberty and will of the one undergoing the same. 

CHARACTER DISSECTION || SEVERUS SNAPE - ALAN RICKMAN || HARRY POTTER

Well, I don't think Harry Potter is subjected to an introduction because of the popularity of the whole series of Harry Potter. Most of us are already familiarized with Harry Potter either via movies or books. Such is the popularity and craze of Harry Potter. No doubt, why it's called the masterpiece by J.K Rowling. Now, being a Potterhead, I often found some characters so interesting and confusing at the same time from the whole series that it literally becomes difficult for me to place the same in just one category i.e in the terms of villainous character or protagonist or just a side character or a filler character. The same goes with the character of Severus Snape. Snape forms one of the most controversial and complicated characters in the whole Harry Potter series. From hating this character, in the beginning, to falling in love with Snape is quite an astounding journey itself. So let's trynna explore this character and try to figure out what's so special with Snape that by the end of the story, most people including me fell in love with Severus Snape, a well-written character by JK Rowling and then perfectly performed by Alan Rickman is a cherry on the top.

LOYALTY TOWARDS ALLIES

Snape was deceivingly loyal to many but extremely loyal to one i.e Harry. Apart from Harry, Snape was loyal to Dumbledore as well. In fact, it was Dumbledore who masterstrokes and made Snape's protection of Harry, evidence of his love for Lily. Various characters in the story always doubted his loyalty but by the end, Dumbledore's trust proved to be the final word. Killing Dumbledore to justify his association with Voldemort was also pretentious in order to protect Harry from Voldemort, one way or the other. Dumbledore asked Snape to preserve the legacy of his beloved Lily in the form of Harry Potter and Snape at any cost was ready to sacrifice even his own life to protect that legacy, which clearly justifies his loyalty towards his allies.

INTELLIGENT AND MASTER OF HIS SUBJECT

 INTELLIGENT AND MASTER OF HIS SUBJECT

Snape was comparatively more intelligent and competent than other teachers in Hogwarts. He was the master of his subjects. Snape was one of the most courageous, intelligent, and skilled wizards in the whole Harry Potter universe. Being the only wizard in Hogwarts who mastered the Occlumency (the magic of closing one's mind against Legilimency) clearly highlights his intelligence and capability.

"I told you to empty yourself of emotion!... Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!"

This statement taken from the part when Snape was trying to teach occlumency clearly indicates the intelligence level of Snape.

Apart from this, he was the master of making potions, elixirs and Dark arts. He was able to create his own curse ''Sectumsempra'' at a very young age. It was only because of his brilliance that he was able to deceive Lord Voldemort himself by pretending to be on his side.

 A PERFECTLY LAYERED CHARACTER

Severus Snape forms a fine example of a perfectly layered character, a character that is neither black nor white. A grey character, a suitable Byronic hero, who hates the hero of the story yet somehow saves him, hates the father of the protagonist still did his best to protect the protagonist and was deeply associated with pain and emotions still manages to emerge as the most badass character of the story. He acted like he wanted to save the child of a girl he loved the most (Lily) and at the same time, he bullied the child of the person he hated the most (James). He was ready to sacrifice his life for Lily's son and was ready to make life hell for James's son. 

If ''you don't need to be good to fight evil'' had a face, it'd be Severus Snape. 

AN UNCONDITIONAL LOVER

Snape's love story is more than a tale, quite epic in its own sense, marking a fine example of devotion as well as dedication.

LOVE STORY OF SNAPE AND LILY: 

The love story of Lily and Snape follows a zig-zag path as growing up with someone being a friend and then marrying someone who always bullied your friend, seems quite interesting, Well yes, it is!

As a teenager, Snape had a crush on Lily. It was platonic at that time in a real sense but later on, it merely turns into a possession. He was very attached to Lily as Lily was the only person who valued him. Lily was the only solace to him in his childhood. At Hogwarts, both Lily and Snape were placed in different houses. He was kind of jealous of James' popularity and was feared of Lily's decision for choosing James over him. He called Lily a mudblood and later turned into an unexpected character. He started hating everyone except Lily and became a death eater, yet he never gave up loving Lily. 

After Lily's death, her memories form an important part of Snape's life. Lily was the only reason Snape devoted his whole life to protecting her son. From protecting Harry by counter cursing Quirell to acting as a dual agent and endangering his very own life and feeding Lord Voldemort with false information, Snape did his very best to protect the son of his beloved.

He even begged his master Voldemort to spare the life of Lily and it was at this moment Lily decided to sacrifice her life to protect her son Harry.

Then accepting Dumbledore's offer of protecting Harry (perhaps out of guilt) justifies the true love of Snape for Lily.

CONCLUSION: Well every character has its flaws and perks and the same goes with the character of Snape as well. People found him evil as well as good with respect to different terms. In the words of J.K Rowling, Snape is a vulnerable and insecure character. At the same time, he's a damn confident and a perfect portrayal of self-assurance as well. In my perspective, Snape is a hero figure with numerous flaws. Though insecure but a truly devotional character, who literally devoted and dedicated his everything for the sake of his love.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE || PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKDOWN

 Writing about Nietzsche is a difficult task itself as decoding the philosophy of someone who is already misunderstood by thousands and misinterpreted by most of the people of his century is quite challenging. Apart from this Nietzsche is someone, I am fond of reading. Coming to the writings, Nietzsche's aphorisms and morbidly perplexing instances themselves served as the source of misinterpretation and misunderstanding. People believe Nietzsche was far ahead of his time and hence his ideologies and beliefs never satisfied the people of his century.

His writings owning the use of quite strong and aggressive words made it difficult for people to understand the same with ease. It's quite often people miss a number of vital points of his writings and hence misinterpret the whole stuff. One of the most famous examples includes, ''GOD IS DEAD''. In simple words, the whole philosophy of Nietzsche is the assessment of humanity as it stands and the prediction of where it's actually going.

GOD IS DEAD

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?

Now, this few word statement holds a deep and meaningful philosophy behind it. In short, Nietzsche is challenging people to rise over their theistic imaginations. He simply meant God can no longer provide values. By this statement, Nietzsche directly highlighted the replacement of religion by western civilisation in terms of ethics and morality. He simply analogues God with morality and hence meant that mankind's beliefs came to an end with respect to God because of new ideologies of Atheism, Nihilism, Marxism, etc and hence there's a need to establish a new system of beliefs and morality. 

Nietzsche both predicted as well as feared that without effective replacement, humanity would be left to struggle as well as suffer without any clear system and meaning and devolve into despair or say Nihilism.

UBERMENSCH 

Nietzsche challenged the whole concept of thinking by the introduction of the idea of ''THE OVERMAN'' or ''UBERMENSCH''. Enhancement of humanity and mankind forms the laying stone of the whole concept of Ubermensch. According to Nietzsche, humans hold the power of making their own decisions. We need not bear the burden of social constructs and seek and consume the truth without external influences affecting the same. The Ubermensch or the Overman is strong enough to reevaluate all values, overcome pity and sufferings, provide meaning to the meaningless life, express his will to power(The Will to Power) in higher forms and hence when a man is able to do this, he surpasses the level of being a man and become an Overman or Ubermensch.

SELF OVERCOMING AND SUFFERING IN LIFE

Self-overcoming forms the central theme of ''THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA''. Life is a struggle and full of suffering. Sufferings of life can't be eliminated, instead, can be overcome. There's no point in running from pain. The only way to grow is to take a direct dig at it i.e by facing the pain, growth can be experienced. In the words of Nietzsche, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.”. 

Nietzsche believed suffering is a good thing to be leaned into. Suffering acts as fuel towards the amassing of strength and psychological power. In short, suffering paves the way towards progress and growth.

“Man, the bravest of animals, and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far.”

EXISTENTIALISM AND NIHILISM 

Well, Nietzsche neither considered himself a Nihilist nor an Existentialist. But his philosophy, by different terms, supports the ideas of both Nihilism and Existentialism. According to my own views, Nietzsche was leaner towards existentialism.

Favouring Existentialism, he believed that men must accept that they are part of a material world, regardless of what else might exist. As part of this world, men must live as if there is nothing else beyond life. A failure to live, to take risks, is a failure to realize human potential.

In a nutshell, Nietzsche wants us to find meaning and purpose in a meaningless life. He wants to make us realise our self-worth and according to him, no price is high for the privilege of owning oneself. He strongly condemns the systems that already prevails. According to him, we destroy our integrity and free will just to get adjusted in the preformed systems and hence we need to withstand the herd mentality and find the true nature of life ourselves.

THANK YOU!!

SELF ESTEEM IN A NUTSHELL || KASHISH GUPTA

 Self Esteem simply means the overall evaluation of yourself i.e your own worth. It is a subjective approach and hence can vary accordingly. Self-esteem directly proportionates your self-confidence, abilities to compete/feeling of competence and your tendency to make strong decisions. With time and experience, self-esteem increases eventually.

 In the words of Osho, "The only thing that matters in your life is your opinion about yourself." With this statement, Osho directly highlighted the significance of healthy self-esteem. In a literal sense, if you lack self-esteem, you lack all the abilities necessary to prosper in life. Self-esteem is something that forms an utmost important element for living life with a positive or an optimistic outlook. 

It is wisely said, " Focus on your strengths and not weaknesses." Now focussing on strength demands avoidance of distractions or the factors that diverge your focus and shift your mindset towards your weaknesses. In order to stabilize the focus, you need to be confident enough of your decision and confidence ultimately demands your ability to resist the impedance hindering your goal and finally, you need to have a sense of strong self-esteem to withstand your goal. 

Well, I don’t think there’s a need to describe in detail the way we’re treated in our society. Memes and thousands of videos available over the internet are far more than enough to acquaint you with the problems faced by everyone. It's not something astonishing why 'Sharmaji ka ladka' attained such popularity. 

A LOAD OF INSECURITIES 

People often are not satisfied with the stuff they possess. They’re always in the hunger of possessing more and more and hence their so-called hunger for possessions never satisfies. Well if you’re not satisfied with what you have then you’re left with nothing but a ton of insecurities. And these insecurities stymied the development of your self-confidence and ultimately your self-esteem.

UNNECESSARY COMPARISONS

Comparing oneself with others is the natural instinct and is framed within human behaviour naturally so, there’s nothing to worry about but the bar limits to the extent till the comparison help us learn and grow in a community and also living together as cohesive groups but as this comparison ensures one is worse than the other, the whole concept of self-worth and self-esteem vanishes away. The one found superior ends up being a menace for the other. 

OVERTHINKING AND REMINISCING TRAUMATIC PAST

Well, past events act as one of the most important degrading factors for self-esteem. We are well aware of the fact how difficult it is to forget something that happened in the past. But at the same time, if we’ll remain stuck in the past then the chances of growth at both biological and psychological levels will be affected. Past events may hold the evidence of your low self-esteem that probably developed because of some low grades in any class or some sort of materialistic insecurities or some other factors. We evolve every day and hence our intelligence, abilities, thinking, etc everything attain a new level. We need to comprehend our capabilities and need not let our traumatic past dominate. 

If one wasn't quite confident and extrovert in his childhood that doesn't mean he'd remain the same throughout his life. The farrago of the past isn't something that can't be sorted.

CONFIDENCE AND SELF ESTEEM 

Well, both confidence and self-esteem go side by side. The more confident you are, the higher your self-esteem is. Having enough confidence ensures your domination in the room. With confidence, your social interaction, ability to make bold decisions, withstanding judgements of others, etc improves. 

If you let people’s perceptions of you dictate your behaviour then you can’t grow as a person.

STANDING ALONE || KASHISH GUPTA

Man is a social animal and hence need the company of others. This statement stands true in some sense but it has some negative impact as well. We are programmed since birth with the ideas of dependence over the company, friends, relatives, etc. This programming not only limits our notions but also narrows our spectrum of perceiving things with different frames and different angles. We often consider this belief of social dependence so seriously that we start rejecting our very own thoughts and hence one way or the other just try to attain the attention of others by doing the stuff that pleases others. We just keep on depressing our pragmatic and logical thoughts and keep on dwelling ourselves into the pit of these preconceived notions. 

Well, everything has its own importance in its own way. Social relationships are important and we need to maintain these as well but caring too much by going out of the way and after disturbing your own integrity doesn't seem good, right?

Now, facing the reality of life, the real truth is, no one gonna stand by your side at your lows. You're the only one who gonna face the miseries of your life. There's a quote saying, Don't depend too much on anyone in this world because your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness. Well, this quote is too deep philosophically and the depth of the quote grabs our attention. So, let's break it down and try to understand the real meaning of standing alone.

Standing alone simply means being bold enough to make own decisions without caring for others and without considering the "log kya kahenge'' statement. Caring about the opinions of others always limit your potential of thinking out of the box, limits your process of growth, make you the product of biases and ultimately transform you into someone sculptured by social decisions. As a result, you lose your real identity. 

So, if you can't withstand social opinions then you literally end up being a dependent body who is nothing in a real sense but a puppet controlled by society, incapable of making his own decisions and paralysed to take actions on his own. So the thing is, you need to have the courage of cherishing your choices and your decisions. You must be able to defend your opinions and you should be able to differentiate what's right and what's wrong completely on the basis of your abilities and not by the influence of society. 

ANIME TEACHES || NARUTO UZUMAKI

 From founding boring to falling in love with the manga series and anime Naruto, it seems my comprehensive and perceiving abilities improved a lot. The way Kishimoto [creator of Naruto] presented Naruto is just praiseworthy. All the characters of the Naruto series represent deep philosophies of their own, which make the whole Naruto series full of learnings. Naruto, being the protagonist has its own interesting approaches and hence form a subject of interest for all the people out there, who’re fond of philosophy and are inquisitive about something new to grasp.  Kishimoto had described the journey of Naruto quite adroitly, which made people including me fall in love with the character Naruto. Apart from Naruto other characters also teaches us a lot, but today we gonna talk about our most admirable character Naruto himself. We will be decoding the philosophy of Naruto. Now, let’s dwell on it.

    NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS

Since childhood, Naruto had a dream of becoming the Hokage of his village. He always wanted to be recognised and respected by everyone in his village. He was so dedicated that he can go far beyond his limits in order to achieve his dream of becoming Hokage. Naruto was so confident that his iconic dialogue, “ Believe it!’’ hits hard every time he use it. He was ready to bear any pain to fulfil his dream of becoming Hokage one day.

FRIENDSHIP - A BOND FOR LIFE

Considering friendship more precious than anything else in his life, Naruto was always ready to sacrifice everything to bring back his best friend Sasuke. Naruto was always ready to die for his friends. He literally considered the bond of friendship something too valuable to lose so easily. A number of times, Naruto jeopardized his life for the sake of his comrades. In the whole Naruto series, he frequently mentioned a special bond that existed between Naruto and Sasuke and he believed that bonds meant more than a bond of friendship to him. 

LEARN FROM THE PAIN  

Naruto had faced the pain of solitude and despair since his childhood. He was always poked and insulted by others. All the people in his village used to acknowledge him as a vessel of a 'Nine-tailed monster' or 'Jinchuriki'. No one ever tried to understand and acknowledge the soft heart of the child. He experienced the pain of loneliness and rejection and hence was able to empathize and understand the feelings of others who faced the same. Perhaps this was the reason, Naruto was able to make friends and change their behaviour and perception in such a fascinating way. For instance, he completely changed the monster of the sand, Gara, into a kind-hearted person, who later on was able to become 'The Kazekage'.

NEVER LEAVE YOUR COMRADES, NO MATTER WHAT!

Well, this philosophy originally belongs to Obito but this is worth mentioning because our hero, Naruto also believes the same. According to him, comrades value more than rules and the missions, so, it's okay to break the rules in order to save your comrades.