I've never liked chess, which is probably because I've never been good at it. I can usually see one or two moves ahead but I can't see what my opponent will do, or what I will do in three moves time. It's not in my nature to be so calculating. Because I don't think strategically, things end up happening in my day-to-day life that I didn't expect. It's not that I don't think about the consequences of my actions; in fact, most of my day is spent thinking about what will happen with my various choices. I think about the immediate consequences, such as "who will be offended when I say this?" or "should I go out with these people I haven't seen in a while or these people I haven't seen in a while?" As you can see, most of my worries are about hurting people. Not the physical kind of hurt but injurious emotional pain, the insulting kind of hurt. We've all felt it, and it's that memory that makes me struggle to avoid causing it, makes me wish there were no little grey lies, no "don't say anything, but"s.

I played chess with a friend of mine once, and because of the calculatingly chaotic way I played, achieved stalemate. I guess calculated chaos doesn't always work out for the best. I really just want to stop playing the game.