Some years ago, when I taught in a primary school, I ran an after-school chess club each Wednesday afternoon.
One time, as the pupils were setting up their boards and pieces, ready to play, a girl walked past my classroom with her mother.
'I think I'd like to join the chess club,' I heard her say.
Her mother cast her a withering look and replied, 'Don't be stupid. Chess is boring.'
The girl's mother was wrong.
In two ways. First, she was wrong to discourage her daughter from trying new things and exploring new interests.
And second, she was wrong to dismiss chess as boring.
Back in the days when I played competitive chess (at novice level), I used to feel queasy with excitement before an important game.
Afterwards, I would lie awake in bed playing and replaying the moves in my head, sometimes gloating over my win, sometimes beating myself up over my blunders.
So I know from experience that chess can be thrilling.
It may not be to everyone's taste. Indeed, it is not to everyone's taste. But for those who appreciate it, it can be a captivating and beautiful game.
In 1899, psuchologist and philosopher William James wrote an essay entitled On A Certain Blindness In Human Beings.
Its subject was 'the blindness with which we are all afflicted with regard to the feelings of creautres and people different from ourselves'.
In his essay, James pointed out that humans are practical beings, each with his own functions and duties to perform.
These functions and duties are of vital importance to us, but are generally of limited importance to others.
Similarly, things that are of vital importance to others tend to be of limited importance to us.
Furthermore, we all have different characters, abilities, experiences and needs.
Consequently, we are all motivated by and interested in different things.
The upshot of this, James felt, is that none of us should 'presume to decide in an absolute way on the value of another person's conditions or ideals'.
It may seem to us that other people spend their time and energy on things that are of little value or importance.
But we do not experience the world the way they do; we do not know the things they know; we do not understand all the things they understand.
Therefore, we are not qualified to judge.
I once knew a man who was intensely interested in two things: his religion and his career.
These things stimulated his interest, excited his imagination and gave zest to his life.
He had, on the other hand, not the slightest interest in fashion and beauty.
I remember remarking to him, one day, that a certain woman whom we both knew was always exquisitely dressed and beautifully groomed.
'It's a pity she has nothering better to do with her time,' he retorted.
Her priorities were different from his and so he dismissed them.
he viewed them as shallow and even contemptible.
It did not occur to him that perhaps the reason she had different priorities and interests was that she possessed different abilities and sensibilities; that perhaps she was able to appreciate certain things that he could not.
James believed that considerations such as these ought to influence us in two ways.
First, they should prevent us from being too ready to dismiss as meaningless other people's lifestyles and interests.
Second, they should prompt us to 'tolerate, respect and indulge those whom we see harmlessly interested and happy in their own ways, however unintelligible these may be to us'.
We are all afflicted by 'a certain blindness', by the inability to see the world as others see it.
It is a universal defect. But we can, at least, be aware of it.
- By [Gary Hayden], taken from [Mind Your Body], 21 Jul 2011
