Chess and the Multiverse of Madness

 I created a catchy title through a mash-up of my high school activity and a recent Marvel Disney movie (Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness), but chess is kind of a metaphor for the multiverse: With every single move that is made in chess, the variations of outcomes increases and the flow of the game branches off into millions, billions, infinite possibilities. Every time I make a chess move, I consider that I could have made a different move, and that other move could have branched off into all of its various possibilities after that. That is, as I understand it, precisely how the multiverse works: each decision we make changes our outcomes as it branches off. So theoretically, there could be parallell universes right now where I didn't play 1. c5 black against white's opening move of 1.c5, or where I didn't order from Chipotle last night, or where I didn't meet MJ 7 years ago by chance, or where I didn't choose to become a lawyer and decided to go into teaching instead. (Boy, that would have really branched off into a whole nuther universe where I'm dealing with homework, assigning grades, talking to helicopter parents, and worse, trying to be a pawn in the U.S.'s current political battle that is stretching out into the classrooms. (Also, I'd be a little more fearful of my life going into the classroom as opposed to sitting on my butt at home, unfortunately for teachers). 

This weekend reminded me of an old flame I used to like playing: Chess. I analyzed every game I played, the mistakes I made, what I could have done differently, and things to improve for next time. It was fun, and I was rewarded for my improvements by the wins that I put up and the pleasure of helping my team win. I'll never forget the feeling of being the last player left in an important Illinois state final game in 2004 (junior year of high school), needing a win for our team to win, and pulling out in front of everybody. Probably the most locked in, pressure-packed situation I've ever been in (and I was half of my age now, half the maturity, half the ability to handle myself!) I loved chess and the competitive drive that it brought out in me, and I loved winning. 

I realize now that my tendency to look back at various decisions I've made in life take root at least partly from chess, where you get to play the game, but then go back after the game is over and see what I could have done differently, and project myself into different multiverses where things could have gone right, and importantly, play out the scenario (it's literally called a postmortem) after the game is over to see what would have happened, and get a pretty definitive answer (although, there's probably various other multiverses even from the postmortem that are left unexplored/undiscovered. It's not an exact science). Life is not that easy; I can look back at certain key moments in my own life where I could have chosen another path, but I don't really get to play any of the scenarios out, much less react to what I would have done if another fork had opened along that other path. (If this is sounding a lot like that "Midnight Library" entry where I recap'ed the book by Matthew Haig, you're right it does). Now chess websites are so sophisticated that they can analyze your past games for you and give a (!) for excellent moves, and (?) for questionable moves, and (??) for obvious blunders, that any novice player could have seen was going to be a blunder. Unfortunately, our lives don't allow for that ability neither, although I'm pretty certain about where I can put (??) next to things I did in my life. We also rarely give ourselves enough credit for (!) moves. 

Sometimes, I crave the relative certainty of chess. Pieces can only move a certain away, the playing field is just the 64 squares in front of both players, the rules are defined and you can't make up as you go along. So there is actually a likely finite number of multiverses in chess. It's going to be an astronomically high number (the largest I can think of is a googol, 1 followed by 100 zeros) but there's some limit to it. There's no limit to life, to the possibilities in life, to the randomness that occurs, the variables, and what might happen in the future. It's just chaos compared to chess. But that's also what's so great about it. Chess is fun but it only stays fun for so long (I stopped playing after high school). Life is much more dynamic, and fruitful if the variables all turn out your way.