Multiple Universes and the Divine Chess Game
When I was young, I would lie awake at night with this irrational fear in my mind, that my room was in fact a tiny keyhole and some giant was slowly inserting a key to crush me. It wasn't really the crushing that disturbed me, though. It was the fact that I - my room - was so incomprehensibly small...as if I were falling into some dark pit. In fact, before picking up a single book on astrophysics, I wondered whether the entire world, hell, the entire universe was but a single cell of a vast being. No, not some sort of "God"; divinity beyond reach would have made the disorientation more bearable. Rather, I thought, what if that vast being...was one of many vast beings as sentient and human as myself?
Of course, now that I've come to read a bit about the multiverse theory and the expansion of space, I can put my qualms into something of a scientific context. The thing with theories, though, is that it leaves room open for debate...or, in my case, fantastical meanderings.
Hence, it was with a strange state of mind one day that I envisioned this snippet of an act. Sometimes, the images playing out in my mind precede any sort of reason, plot line, what have you, which the rational side can interpret. That's the fun of literary critics (even better, now that the author is dead). Well, let me lay out what I've seen of the scene so far, and you can tell me what it means.
A close-up of a chess board in what appears to be a long, dusty hall, the kind grandmaster chess players might compete in. It is the middle of a tournament, and the viewer sees an old man - or perhaps not old, but very worn in spirit - sitting at the chessboard, slowly contemplating the pieces as he considers his next move. The game moves ponderously forward, until suddenly, the double doors to the hall bang open to reveal another man, this one young and fierce, with eyes that blaze in frustrated anger. At the beginning I supposed the newcomer to be the old man's brother; that is how the conversation is portrayed. This young man goes up to the chessboard and slams his hands onto the table, obviously furious over something. He begins an argument which the two have had for many an eon - for his is the art of war, as was once his brother's, until happenstance led the latter to retreat from the battlefield into these meaningless games fought over a 8 x 8 chessboard. A brilliant tactician, laid to waste while the rest of the country (or perhaps, world) toils in the middle of war.
Well, the argument moves forward, as the younger man usurps what is believed to be the former competitor (we never see him) and proceeds to finish the game against the older. I have yet to pinpoint the exact flow of their debate, although small bits of dialogue do echo faintly in my mind. Nevertheless, it seems that all eyes are on them until the endgame, and finally, checkmate. One option here is for the older man to win, but passionlessly, as if finishing an eternal duty he has no more use for. Another is for the end to come to a standoff in the older man's eyes, until the argument peaks, and the younger checkmates him in either an unperceived move, or flouts the rules of chess altogether to win his mark. Nevertheless, he gets up in dead silence, says, "You...and the rest of the players!" (finishing on his previous climactic point), hand waving to one side -
And the camera pans out to show that this older man, whom we assumed to be the central grandmaster, is in fact one of an endless line of identical old men, all sitting on one side of the chessboard, the other seat empty.
What I thought to symbolize here (although my initial intention was for it to be two brothers of noble birth, embroiled in a war for their kingdom) upon seeing this is...some sort of cosmic interpretation of God. That is, God is the old man at the chessboard, and the younger one who plays the game against him is perhaps...the Devil? Or even Humanity? We see God, in fact, plays a ponderous chessgame against nobody, retreating from the real conflicts of the world. Or is it looking down upon? The real crux and the mindboggler that links back to my irrational fears in the first place, is the fact that God himself is but one of an infinite series of "divine" players, no more or less significant than they. We worship him only as such as he plays our particular board.
The idea of a single element being more easily related to than a group of elements can be seen in the way humanitarian efforts try to put a "human face" on suffering. That is, as the number of victims rises, paradoxically, we as humans move down in sympathy for the individual. A strange occurrence, eh? Perhaps personalization has an influence...or simply the fact that we do not have the capacity to divide our attentions that far and still retain the same level of empathy for the single element.
Of course, now that I've come to read a bit about the multiverse theory and the expansion of space, I can put my qualms into something of a scientific context. The thing with theories, though, is that it leaves room open for debate...or, in my case, fantastical meanderings.
Hence, it was with a strange state of mind one day that I envisioned this snippet of an act. Sometimes, the images playing out in my mind precede any sort of reason, plot line, what have you, which the rational side can interpret. That's the fun of literary critics (even better, now that the author is dead). Well, let me lay out what I've seen of the scene so far, and you can tell me what it means.
A close-up of a chess board in what appears to be a long, dusty hall, the kind grandmaster chess players might compete in. It is the middle of a tournament, and the viewer sees an old man - or perhaps not old, but very worn in spirit - sitting at the chessboard, slowly contemplating the pieces as he considers his next move. The game moves ponderously forward, until suddenly, the double doors to the hall bang open to reveal another man, this one young and fierce, with eyes that blaze in frustrated anger. At the beginning I supposed the newcomer to be the old man's brother; that is how the conversation is portrayed. This young man goes up to the chessboard and slams his hands onto the table, obviously furious over something. He begins an argument which the two have had for many an eon - for his is the art of war, as was once his brother's, until happenstance led the latter to retreat from the battlefield into these meaningless games fought over a 8 x 8 chessboard. A brilliant tactician, laid to waste while the rest of the country (or perhaps, world) toils in the middle of war.
Well, the argument moves forward, as the younger man usurps what is believed to be the former competitor (we never see him) and proceeds to finish the game against the older. I have yet to pinpoint the exact flow of their debate, although small bits of dialogue do echo faintly in my mind. Nevertheless, it seems that all eyes are on them until the endgame, and finally, checkmate. One option here is for the older man to win, but passionlessly, as if finishing an eternal duty he has no more use for. Another is for the end to come to a standoff in the older man's eyes, until the argument peaks, and the younger checkmates him in either an unperceived move, or flouts the rules of chess altogether to win his mark. Nevertheless, he gets up in dead silence, says, "You...and the rest of the players!" (finishing on his previous climactic point), hand waving to one side -
And the camera pans out to show that this older man, whom we assumed to be the central grandmaster, is in fact one of an endless line of identical old men, all sitting on one side of the chessboard, the other seat empty.
What I thought to symbolize here (although my initial intention was for it to be two brothers of noble birth, embroiled in a war for their kingdom) upon seeing this is...some sort of cosmic interpretation of God. That is, God is the old man at the chessboard, and the younger one who plays the game against him is perhaps...the Devil? Or even Humanity? We see God, in fact, plays a ponderous chessgame against nobody, retreating from the real conflicts of the world. Or is it looking down upon? The real crux and the mindboggler that links back to my irrational fears in the first place, is the fact that God himself is but one of an infinite series of "divine" players, no more or less significant than they. We worship him only as such as he plays our particular board.
The idea of a single element being more easily related to than a group of elements can be seen in the way humanitarian efforts try to put a "human face" on suffering. That is, as the number of victims rises, paradoxically, we as humans move down in sympathy for the individual. A strange occurrence, eh? Perhaps personalization has an influence...or simply the fact that we do not have the capacity to divide our attentions that far and still retain the same level of empathy for the single element.
posted by Anqi | 4:44 PM
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