224. The art of Weiqi (Go/Baduk) war (碁#31) - I have died and come back

Well, it has finally happened. I have died and come back. And through it all, I just kept on playing the game with my American opponent. One move per day: One black stone for him and one white stone for me. Now, I didn’t actually die but an attempt to shut the game down was made. It came from a source that on one level had nothing to do with the game, yet the signs were there in hindsight. So now you, dear listener, must be wondering what’s so special about the game we are playing? On the surface, to that question, the answer is nothing. But on a deeper level, the game represents a world in which that source (I’m referring too) has been eliminated by the fact that they just don’t exist and therefore are irrelevant. This may seem totally ridiculous and not worth trying to shut the game down for, but imagine a world in which your whole idea of the game, for example, revolves around The Middle Kingdom and who controls it. And then, all of a sudden - POOF! The Middle Kingdom is no longer in the middle. If your frame of reference no longer exists as an ongoing concern, what then? What should have happened was to relearn the game and not live off the coat tails of previous sages. Instead, what did happen was that nobody was allowed to play the game on home ground. And so nobody did or does. Which is in the game of weiqi how you lose stones: Surround and capture. One moment a group of stones exist on the board, and then, in the next moment they no longer exist. Sucked straight out of the game’s reality and into the basket of no return. Except of course, if you play by the rules of “Upper Management”. These so called Shen or spirit stones have a habit of dying off the weiqi board and then reappearing somewhere else to fuck up whatever strategy or tactic was in motion. These Shen or spirit stones exist so that The Middle Kingdom does not stagnate and die from isolation. They move and act by the paradigms that only the Jade Emperor can elect. No earthly governance can force Heaven’s Will. So when a game of weiqi has begun, it must be allowed to play itself out to its own conclusion; least the ramifications be manifested in the physical (jurisdiction) ⚔️圍棋戰聖 Follow on Insta: @baguazhang_