What I Learned from Dreaming Backgammon
Backgammon never really worked for me.
Chess, I was accidentally okay at, to the dismay of certain people of
my acquaintance who thought I should have taken it a whole lot more
seriously, especially since they did and yet still lost to my cavalier
moves. I didn't want to get better. Cavalier, casual, non-intense was
exactly how I wanted it to be, especially after the backgammon
experience.
My little backgammon phase was entirely brought on by friends. Here
are some things you can do when you're really really high: shoot
hoops, shoot pool, play backgammon. It's only right to rotate
activities, so backgammon got its turn.
I hated it mostly because the board would hunt me down and haunt my
sleep. Awful. AWFUL. I thought then that staring at it for so long had
imprinted a pattern. I know now, as we all do, that all that
visualizing was a sort of self education. Which would have been a nice
thing for my brain to do if I'd wanted to improve, but I didn't.
Last night, my brain started thinking of painting. I've been painting
for six weeks now and although you wouldn't want to call it an
education, when I'm doing it, I really AM trying to learn. I really am
NOT just trying to make it look pretty.
It's not a fine line at all between the two. The making stuff look
pretty is actually a nerve wracking exercise, full of judgment and
begging the pieces to go in the right places.
The setting out to learn is a highly conscious process. It probably
sounds counter-intuitive, but when I'm learning something, and AWARE
that I'm learning something, it's a hell of a lot easier to discard
the stuff I just spent an hour on.
It's worked pretty well so far. I'm thinking this morning it maybe,
might, could work with painting, too. Maybe. Which would make me very
happy. It will be MUCH better than dreaming about backgammon. And even
better than being accidentally okay at chess, because okay was all I
ever allowed myself to be.
Whooo-eee. What big lessons I gave myself!
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