You could definitely have squandered your life by being tenacious with your goals. Instead, you became a father and a husband and to rise up to those responsibilities day in, day out is a greater achievement than being phenomenal at chess which it sounds like you are anyway!
I was just recently talking with two friends about the beauty of intentionally giving up some meaningful practice or habit of using time and energy - the sadness involved gets paired with the sense of deeper meaning of doing something that matters more in the wider scheme of things. Even regardless of the outcomes it feels right. The more I realize that I can actually give something meaningful to others, the less I think (and feel) of success on my individual level. And I can ask for kind validation from those others - which satisfies my soul more than any title or medal ever could ❤️
It's amazing how top performance in any field - including in chess, it seems - appears to have so much in common with other arenas of high endevour; such as in business leadership, martial arts or Zen archery. This integration of things that you speak of - and describe as the "coalescence of the heart, the mind and the will" - seems to be reflected upon by many other masters in diverse fields. One wonders whether that might be a reason why some texts, such as the Book of Five Rings and others, often appear to us as timeless. And perhaps there is also a cultural correlation to this. When are we 'strong', as cultures and societies?
Jonathan, thank you for this post. It tackles something critically important which has consequences on how we show up in the world and then what world we co-create. In my current surroundings, it's full of people who could be defined as more or less successful "underachievers" and that includes me. However, here is my question. Instead of trying to deal with the fact that we are "underachievers" in certain areas of life, shouldn't we redefine the key performance indicators according to which we meassure our success? After all, how could be "underachievers" in an area in which we are not even competing?
Johnathan, 100 percent for explaining, so well, the human condition as experienced through the ego and Left Hemisphere dynamics. Epistemologically it amounts to cognitive underachievement. As mankind's awakening increases, the cognitive success rate increases, until epistemologically it reaches cognitive success at the level of the Right Hemisphere optimisation, the mind of the universe. It can be demonstrated through a materialistic irreducible process reductionistic pure intelligence of electromagnetic nature of mind causing spirit, the New Math of Life bringing order into chaos by always correcting errors.
A Graph-theoretical type of formless Laplacian mechanics. The "magic" of this is really that the mechanism for optimising both hemispheres is identical but in the opposite direction of thought. One self-referential-least-action and the other all-referential-least-action (incomprehensible to the LH (Iain McGilchrist) but a life of equality in the world)
Yes, we are all a work in progress, as if honest, we all experience.
Well written Jonathan, it has for some time been a joyous uphill struggle keeping up with your use of the many facets of the English Language seen from my analytical mind of what is and what we ought to include for progress of usefulness. Thank you, Brother Nelson.
You could definitely have squandered your life by being tenacious with your goals. Instead, you became a father and a husband and to rise up to those responsibilities day in, day out is a greater achievement than being phenomenal at chess which it sounds like you are anyway!
Thanks for a stimulating read 🙏
I was just recently talking with two friends about the beauty of intentionally giving up some meaningful practice or habit of using time and energy - the sadness involved gets paired with the sense of deeper meaning of doing something that matters more in the wider scheme of things. Even regardless of the outcomes it feels right. The more I realize that I can actually give something meaningful to others, the less I think (and feel) of success on my individual level. And I can ask for kind validation from those others - which satisfies my soul more than any title or medal ever could ❤️
It's amazing how top performance in any field - including in chess, it seems - appears to have so much in common with other arenas of high endevour; such as in business leadership, martial arts or Zen archery. This integration of things that you speak of - and describe as the "coalescence of the heart, the mind and the will" - seems to be reflected upon by many other masters in diverse fields. One wonders whether that might be a reason why some texts, such as the Book of Five Rings and others, often appear to us as timeless. And perhaps there is also a cultural correlation to this. When are we 'strong', as cultures and societies?
"The story of who we are does not ring true without at least a little pain at the thought of who we might have been instead."
❤️👏
Jonathan, thank you for this post. It tackles something critically important which has consequences on how we show up in the world and then what world we co-create. In my current surroundings, it's full of people who could be defined as more or less successful "underachievers" and that includes me. However, here is my question. Instead of trying to deal with the fact that we are "underachievers" in certain areas of life, shouldn't we redefine the key performance indicators according to which we meassure our success? After all, how could be "underachievers" in an area in which we are not even competing?
Johnathan, 100 percent for explaining, so well, the human condition as experienced through the ego and Left Hemisphere dynamics. Epistemologically it amounts to cognitive underachievement. As mankind's awakening increases, the cognitive success rate increases, until epistemologically it reaches cognitive success at the level of the Right Hemisphere optimisation, the mind of the universe. It can be demonstrated through a materialistic irreducible process reductionistic pure intelligence of electromagnetic nature of mind causing spirit, the New Math of Life bringing order into chaos by always correcting errors.
A Graph-theoretical type of formless Laplacian mechanics. The "magic" of this is really that the mechanism for optimising both hemispheres is identical but in the opposite direction of thought. One self-referential-least-action and the other all-referential-least-action (incomprehensible to the LH (Iain McGilchrist) but a life of equality in the world)
Yes, we are all a work in progress, as if honest, we all experience.
Well written Jonathan, it has for some time been a joyous uphill struggle keeping up with your use of the many facets of the English Language seen from my analytical mind of what is and what we ought to include for progress of usefulness. Thank you, Brother Nelson.
How can we start accepting the fact that imperfections are just part of nature instead of keep chasing down the wrong path?