Flash Aborted, Chess Revived

During my 2 mile run and 4 mile walk this morning my mind was occupied with the flash project, and I discovered that many images and memories from the past, along with concomitant emotions, were being brought to my consciousness, things which I have not recalled for many years. I found my mind becoming overwhelmed with the totality of my life's experiences, the changes which have occurred, not only on the outside, but inside as well. I was wondering if I should write about the many negative experiences of my existence, which of course all deal with people who targeted me with negative energy. I began recalling these people and even to think about them goes against my idea that hell beings should not be brought into my consciousness, even if they are standing in front of me I should be conscious not of them due to their immense negative energy, but focusing on positive things instead. But if I am going to skip and gloss over these negative hell beings, I am not sure the flash project will accomplish what it sets out to do, which is to record the important experiences of my life so that by the time I reach the end of the sequence of events the whole will come into a sharp picture and conclusions can be drawn. I am sorry to say that these hell beings who targeted me with negative energy did influence how I perceive life, and indeed, they are the reason I consider the world to be a hellish place - as Sartre once wrote, what is hell, but people? Not wanting to give hell beings an inch of space inside my consciousness, I have therefore decided to abandon the project, why think of hell beings when I can be cultivating positive energy instead?

And so it is back again to meditating upon chess from day to day, along with running and walking and reading. Chess being a metaphor for life, with its ups and downs and mistakes and occasional triumphs, is an activity which will bring positive energy to my life and allow me to flow in the river of time with a creative satisfaction. Until something better comes along I will continue to study chess books at the library and play in occasional competitions.

Flash - Introduction

I played in a couple of small chess tournaments over the weekend and had a fun time with below average results but each game was a rich tapestry of desire fused with logic. I don't plan on playing many more tournaments and would like to spend the rest of my free days preparing for death. For months I have been undecided on how I would like to go about this, this preparation for the most mysterious and fearsome transition. Tonight as I was reading Sartre's The Reprieve, it occurred to me that I could prepare for death by writing about my life, it won't so much be an autobiography as a collection of moments which would most likely flash before my mind's eye during my final moments on earth. I decided that an appropriate title for this would be Flash, and I will write segments of which the duration is 1 year's time. I will thus have 53 Flash entries. The goal is that by the time I finish writing the 53rd entry I will have come to some conclusions about my life and that somehow this will help me prepare for death.

Summer Break

My Lenovo laptop stopped working so I for the past few days I have not had access to this site. Today I walked to Best Buy on Michigan Ave and purchased a new Lenovo for a little over $200, not a bad price because these little laptops should last ~3 years.

Because I have lost a few days of writing I have decided to end the consecutive daily entries for the summer, the posts were usually small and repetitive so I am not losing much, I will write entries when I feel the need to.

Monk Life - Day 23

Ran 2 miles under a toxic white sky, air was cool. Did not do much for the rest of the day. Started reading The Winter of Our Discontent, Steinbeck's final novel.

Monk Life - Day 22

Played the CCC #41 Plus Score today, took a bye in rd 2 and skipped the final round due to fatigue. Drew a 1660 player in rd 1 and lost to a 1905 player in rd 3. In rd 3 I played the King's Gambit from the white side for the first time in a tournament, I surprised myself by holding a slight edge throughout the middle game and even had a chance for a winning game but I missed the move, which I looked at but upon looking at my oppionent's reply I decided against it but after computer checking the line I needed to look one move further to find that I had a killer reply. When time got down to under 10 minutes I could no longer think long on any one move and this caused the usual problems of miscalculation and I blundered away a good game. Even though I have not played competitvely in 4 months I feel my chess studies are allowing me to improve and gain a deeper undestanding of this fascinating and complex game.

CCC #41, July 6, 2019, round 3.

J/A. Jarath - 

1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 exf4 4.Bb5+ Bd7 5.Qe2+ Qe7 6.Bxd7+ Nxd7 7.d4 O-O-O 8.
Bxf4 Qb4+ 9.c3 Qa5 10.Nf3 Ngf6 11.O-O Qxd5 12.Nbd2 Bd6 13.Bxd6 Qxd6 14.Qc4
Rhf8 15.Rae1 Nb6 16.Qb5 Nfd5 17.Ne5 a6 18.Qd3 f6 19.Nec4 Nxc4 20.Nxc4 Qc6 21.
Nd2 h6 22.Qf5+ Kb8 23.Re6 Qd7 24.Rfe1 g5 25.g3 Ka7 26.c4? (the losing move, made in time trouble)  Nf4 27.gxf4 Qxd4+ 28. Kh1 Qxd2 29.R6e2 Qd6 30.fxg5 hxg5 *

Monk Life - Day 21

I did a lot of walking the past 2 weeks and this caused my feet to get blisters and also a slight injury to a toe, so today I took it easy and walked to the library to study chess. Checked out my favorite chess book, Psychology in Chess by N Krogius, always an inspiration to read prior to a tournament.

Read Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces -

g67 Mieses/Rubinstein (J)

Read Psychology in Chess -

Tal/Gligoric; Tal/Rosetto; Ilyin-Z/Nenarokov 1922;

Ilyin-Z/Nenarokov 1923 (J)

Monk Life -Day 20

Returned home and walked to a Nepalese restaurant with a friend for a nice meal, then we walked along the lake and watched the fireworks. Read more from Aagaard. Will go to the library tomorrow to pick up a couple of chess books I put on hold.

Read Aagaard Attacking Manual I -

Karolyi/Hector; Najdorf/Gliksberg;

Yusupov/Ivanchuk (J)

Monk Life - Day 19

Visiting my parent's today, will stay until tomorrow. Read a bit of Aagaard's Attacking Manual I.

Read Aagaard Attacking Manual I -

Nicklich/Junge; Hector/Mortensen;

Persson/Grooten (J)

Monk Life - Day 18

My laptop battery is going dead so it will be difficult to keep things up to date here, will try my best.

Monk Life - Day 17

No running to let the toe cramp and blisters heal, but managed to walk 12 miles and decided to register for my first chess tournament since the Vietnam Saigon FIDE International, the Chicago Chess Center Plus Score #40, open section, Saturday, July 6, g65, d5, 4 rounds.