The Queen takes a King

Some time ago I wrote about the Queen and King in the game of chess and how the type of thinking about those pieces mirrors an important concept in life.

This morning I have a vision of a very wise and courageous general, who when facing a seemingly hopeless battle, pulled out the stops and won a great victory by seeming to disregard his own King's safety in the interest of victory. By making an all out play against the adverse conditions, he maximized the application of the Queen's power as the centerpiece of a holistic campaign utilizing all his forces. As a result, he completely surprised his opponents and actually ended up capturing the opposing forces' own capital, completely displacing and even destroying the opponent from the inside out. In effect, he abandoned his own King in an all-or-nothing attempt to capture and employ the King of his adversary. Having done so, the loss of his enemy actually enabled him to resecure his own capital, thereby effecting a complete victory.

In more concrete terms, imagine two generals in adjacent cities. By nature of economics or ideology, the enemy general must continually grow and conquer, taking the offensive, and putting his neighboring city on the defensive. Each general fields an army of professional soldiers, the enemy to attack, and the local general to defend the city of his original sustenance. In this situation, the defending general sallies forth to meet the foe, not just with his soldiers, but with his full population, with a considered strategy to overwhelm his attacker's forces and to counterattack

There are some clear examples of this sort of victory in some of my favorite art. One example is Buffy the Vampire Slayer in her final battle against evil, wiping out the very source of evil by finding a way to promote those she would defend into warriors, and taking that unforeseen new strength into the battle. In doing so she and her compatriots abandon their former lives en masse, and accepting the inevitable casualties, succeed in eliminating the very source and power center of the enemy. The result is nothing less than the creation of a new world for the victors, one where the enemy has not just been defeated, but has effectively been eliminated. The difference between winning the battle and eliminating the enemy lies in capturing or eliminating the enemy's capital. As a side effect, the empowerment of her forces remains in effect as they face a new more open world, where they can create their lives anew in any way they'd wish.

A similar strategy is employed by another of my favorite generals, Ender Wiggin, as he wins his final victory over the buggers. The approach he takes in the that final and real battle is a replay of the one he used to win his last battle at the battle school. Having assessed the situation as one sufficiently desperate that only an all-or-nothing tactic could achieve victory, he surprises the enemy by abandoning his starting point on a one-way mission to win at all costs, including the cost of losing the former source of one's power.

This vision comes to me at a time when I'm considering how in my life to "complete the long pass". I have a sort of impatience about how I'm living my life these days as I lead my family in engaging the world. I feel that my true and most powerful skills are relatively unemployed in playing for victory, and my less powerful and less interesting qualities are what I employ on a daily basis. In short, I feel that I am playing in defense of the King rather than using my full advantage to play for victory. I feel that I am making slow and steady progress in growing my life, but that form of struggle will never end. Instead I want to change the game completely, to eliminate my opposition, and engage life under completely new terms.

In this way of thinking of my everyday life, what exactly is the opposition I need to eliminate? The Buffy story perhaps suggests the right answer: Disregard fear until it can be eliminated through the empowerment and application of all my forces to the fight.

My form of employment is what most strikes me as the defining indicator of my defensive, King-protecting mode of engagement. Working as an employee of someone else keeps me on life support, but doesn't allow me to be fully awake and active in life. Yet the question I must continually wrestle with is whether a job like I have now is necessary to accumulate the tools to go into the battle with. Am I lacking the equivalent of Buffy's scythe? If so, how do I get about the process of getting that weapon, the source of empowerment?