Life goes on
Recently my life has been totally redirected in a new and unexpected direction.
This was my life until three months ago:
1. Study up to 12 hours per day. Fail the final exam.
2. Drive a dangerous car aged over 14 years.
3. Go is wonderful!!! Go is the best game in the world!! Learn and enjoy Go. Teach it to some friends.
Currently:
1. Work, up to 35 hours per week and study for the exam I didn't pass.
2. Buy this meravellous thing you can see on the right side.
3. Disappointed about internet go players. Don't play much go.
Moreover, don't play go for an entire week.
Obviously this is the natural sequence of modern life itself, but for the last statement. For some reasons I'm not aware of, I'm not playing go at all. Indeed, the last game I played I found an opponent who was so rude as to make me resign after the first 50 moves. And it made me think about why I play Go. Go is, at the end of the day, a game, a hobby for all of us but a few professional players.
You can say you are very interested in it, you may spend hours studying pro games... but Go will remain a game. Extracted from "Games" at Wikipedia.org: Acording to French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men)(1957), defined a game as an activity that must have the following characteristics:
- fun: the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
- separate: it is circumscribed in time and place
- uncertain: the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
- non-productive
- governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
- fictitious: it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality
As we can see, one of the first characteristics for a game to have place is to be light-hearted, making the players have fun. Being rude, expressing hate... all these feelings and behaviours shouldn't take place on such scenaries.
If you feel you don't have fun on a game, resign.
You might think that you'll be losing a few points on your rating, but you should consider a couple thoughts here: having many "funless" games might your curiosity in Go, and do you really mind that much about points?
Sincerely, I just want to play decently well at Go, being a low 3k or a high 4k doesn't make any sense to me, being a 10k or a 20k represents quite a red line, one which you won't cross by just losing a game you are not enjoying. Finish it as soon as possible or resign, take a breath, empty your mind and prepare for the next joyful game.
Life goes on.
