World Chess Championship: Anand - Carlsen: Game no: 7 "The Act of Creation"

Game no: 7 - "The Act of creation"

Sometimes, it is a good strategy to take time off to lick the wounds and regroup reserve energies, before the next combat! Probably we might take this insipid draw as a time off and hope…!

What we will see today is not only related to game no - 7; but I wish to delve upon an issue that is inherent in every game - "the act of creation".

The title for this piece was picked from Arthur Koestler's great book and I start my delineation of the subject by quoting a piece from the foreword of the book: "Creativity is by no means a peculiarly human gift; it is merely the highest manifestation of a phenomenon which is discernible at each successive level of the evolutionary hierarchy, from the simplest one-celled organism and the fertilised egg to the adult man and the highest human genius. It is, to adopt his (Koestler's) phraseology, an 'actualisation of surplus potentials' - of capacities, that is to say, which are untapped or dormant under ordinary conditions, but which, when the conditions are abnormal or exceptional, reveal themselves in original forms of behaviour."

This 'actualisation of surplus potentials' is the "excess" which Tagore talked about when dealing with human personality.

If we observe the nature intently, we would not fail to appreciate the inherent beauty as well as the intricate science in the acting of each and every constituent member, in each and every unfurling moment. There is a beauty and great science in the flight of a bird, flap of the wings of a bee - which makes it still in the mid air like a helicopter, why even in the undulating movement of a worm. 

Most of us have become insensitive to all these beautiful creations that are enacted at all times, around us!

Why and what made us insensitive?

If you look deep into your self, the answer that will surface is "expectation"! All of us have become a "transactionist" if I may be allowed to coin a word! We look for something out of every situation and this expectation blurs our vision and sense for appreciating the beauty. We are never unconditional. We attach attributes for each and everything and this very phenomenon is what I meant be saying that, "we expect".

Unlike human beings, all the other participants in the nature's drama does not require any audience - AND YET, they don't fail in their duty of displaying and performing their art! They do not 'expect' any reward, applause or appreciation!

Now, this very phenomenon, stated above in the last sentence, strain the act of creation - most of the times (I would not pretend by saying "at times"). 

If the tiger wants to taste its favourite porcupine flesh, it should forebear the pain inflicted on itself by the thorns and strive to reach the underlying skin and lay its teeth on the flesh. 

If the tiger takes time off for licking the wounds, the porcupine may run away - unscathed! Paradoxically, the encounter would have succeeded only in wounding the tiger and not the porcupine!

This takes us back to the match under contention!

"What took more talent, choosing the right problem, the issue one struggles with, or finding the solution?" asked Leonard Mlodinov to Richard Feynman. Feynman replied, "When you first came here and asked to discuss how I approached a problem, I panicked. Because I really don't know. I think it's like asking a centipede which leg comes after which. In some cases finding the problem you work on could be a result of a very good creative imagination. And solving it may not take nearly the same skill. I do - I try as much as I can different kinds of things that don't work, and if it doesn't work, I move on to some other way of trying it. First of all, in my later years I take only the most difficult problems. I like the most difficult problems. The problems that nobody has solved, and therefore the chances that I'm going to solve it are not too high. The reason is, when there is a hard problem, one has to work a long time and has to be persistent. In order to be persistent, you have got to be convinced that it's worthwhile working so hard, that you're going to get somewhere. And that takes a certain kind of fooling yourself. When the problem is finally solved, it will all be by imagination and persistence."

I wish to pick the last part from what Feynman said above, and relate it to the current situation that Anand finds himself in.

As Feynman said, Anand too is finding him in the "later part of his career" - if not the dusk. Time for him to look for deeper truth in chess - every chess world champion (at least, if not all the chess players) has a duty to impact chess - which would outlive him. 

For this, as Feynman said, something radically different has to be tried, persisted, tested and established. 

Mind you, I am not talking about winning a game - leave alone the world championship title. For me the result comes last. I firmly believe that if a creator does what ought to be done, the result is taken care of. Like happiness, result is not one needs to pursue and if one does, they will fail - try persistently, you will fail persistently. Result, like happiness, ensues! 

For now, Anand seem to have not even posed the serious problems that he need to, leave alone solving it. 

Vishy needs to deploy his teeth into action, urgently without any further delay, lest the porcupine which has been dodging him will run away permanently!

During the next rest day, we shall see an example on how, Tal the tiger pinned and tasted the porcupine - Botvinnik; to further this subject taken up today.