July 2021 – Dhriti Patel

[This is mostly just for me. A reminder for myself. Maybe some sentences might seem in contradiction on the superficial level, but since they are all a part of my belief system, they’re all aligned with one another on a deeper note.]

I’m willing to suck at chess for a while.

The climb can be hard, but it doesn’t have to suck. You have to have fun along the way up the hill. That’s what I’m aiming at.

Getting better at chess? Yes, sure, I want to. But I wouldn’t mind if that’s just a consequence of having fun while I’m at it.

But then again, maybe to actually get to at it, I’ll have to put in the necessary number of hours and efforts and play to win, instead just for fun? I don’t know. I’ll see, I’ll figure it out.

My mom pointed this out in me. Currently even, I do sure play to win but I just don’t want it that hard, y’know? You shouldn’t just be playing, you have to compete.

Be someone who plays chess, not someone who sucks at it. Make the game a part of your identity, not the rating. Don’t keep saying to yourself that you suck at it. That will only make it a part of your identity. On the same note, I think I have to change my own narrative too. Since a year now, I have “been trying to learn chess”. I’ll have to change that to “been learning chess” now. Slow and steady, make it a part of your identity.

It’s okay to suck as a beginner. The trick is to stick long enough with it to actually get better at it. Most people quit at the beginner stage (where the progress is slightly difficult and requires efforts) or at the plateau stage of learning (where the progress begins to stall). Whenever you’re starting something new anyway, you’ll suck at it and it’ll be a terrible blow to your ego always. Learn to see beyond it. Learn to fight and persist despite the blows. 10,000 hours. You need to put them in to learn any skill. Honest 10,000 hours of efforts. Don’t quit, let it hurt your ego. You can only get better at something, by sucking at it first. It’s okay if you fail, the trick is to keep at it. Hamesha comfort zone mein thodi rehna hh. Losing takes guts. Trying takes guts.

Maybe you lose, yeah. So? Maybe you lose a lot. So? So what? Don’t let it bother you too much. Don’t let it get in the way of you trying. Don’t let it let you quit trying. Fuck you, and fuck your ego.

Think long-term.

It’s intense, mate.

I’m willing to suck at chess for a while to get better at it.

//Playing OTB chess at our college’s sports week was so fun! Even though I got eliminated in the first round itself. But okay. I’m learning. The experience was great.//

Interested people can read more about the cognitive benefits of playing chess here. Its written by me only for the site that I’m doing a reward driven content writing internship.

I don’t know, I believe it’s just simpler that way. Personally. Atleast for me, it is.

The primary reason is: I fear context collapse. Like, the pictures and captions I’d use for close friends differ very wildly from the ones I’d use for college friends or for family or for cousins or from casual acquaintances. Everyone gets different parts of you. There’s no general way I can be that’s appropriate for everyone, without dulling certain aspects of me, without cutting away certain parts of me. And I don’t wanna do that. So I don’t post. So that every time talking with anyone, new or old, I’m free to pick which parts of me do I wanna show and focus on.

Like, yes, obviously I do want people to know that I can hold a headstand, but no, thank you, I would not put up a picture for anyone (including a certain slightly creepy guy from eight grade) to look at. Instead of being careful about who I let into my circle of updates (which would require so much vigilance and which wouldn’t work out anyway), I would prefer to let everyone in and avoid putting myself up.

I do keep the occasional stories though. The temporariness of them takes my concerns away.

I wouldn’t want my family to see me the same way my friends do, right? And I interact with a lot of different people in a lot of different ways, both (semi) professionally and personally. I’d like everyone to come up with a blank slate for me to write on. This way I can put up a different side of me for everyone according to the context, and that’s great. That even helps me with developing my own sense of self by letting me variate and experiment with a multitude of different ways.

And capitally, I like the freeness that comes with clicking pictures and not them having to be “IG worthy.” It lets me click pictures for the sake of memories. Idk, it’s probably because I don’t trust myself with something as addictive as IG. Maybe I think I have terrible self control. Maybe I’m afraid that I’ll lose myself once I start putting myself up. Whatever it is, I don’t. And that’s okay. The only thing because of not posting that has happened is I’ve just gotten hella number of questions till date, just that, nothing else.

And one more thing: no one notices if you don’t post, and no one cares. So I rather do what I would prefer more, send direct pictures to the ones I want knowing about it. My people that is. The ones who care. The ones who are genuinely interested in what I’ve been upto and not just who click on my story just because it’s there. I never want to be anyone’s “just because it’s there.”

I like some aspects of my life private, because so much of me is already public. I’m way too revealing IRL, and to keep a balance, I avoid being so virtually. Keeping some things about me to myself helps me preserve my sense of self.

And it takes too much time. Too much time, too many efforts go into these things once you start posting. Idk about anyone else, but if I start, I’ll fall down in the black hole of editing and curating and filtering. I would rather instead prefer to put that time and mental energy somewhere else. That’s another reason.

I don’t think I’m superior or preach that everyone should stop posting. No. Nothing like that. It’s just I don’t want to, so I won’t. If you want to, you do you. You do whatever you want, whatever suits you. This is not a question of moral superiority, just our own personal preferences.

I found another parallel in music. I don’t take recommendations from anyone. No one except my two favourite people. Legit no one else. Do I think other people’s taste in music is inferior? No. Obviously not. They’d be listening to the same songs as us. But I don’t want to share that part of me. For no solid reason. Just because I don’t want to. It’s just some part of me that I’ve kept to myself and to the ones I love.

In one sentence I’d say: I don’t post because it’s just simpler that way.

8th September, 2023:

There’s something unnatural about curating all of one’s best moments, best smiles, best angles, best people and making a catalog of them and putting them out there. We humans are always a mix of the light and the dark, the good and the bad, the hard and the soft. The curation only allows for the light, the good, and the hard. It just doesn’t work that way. I can’t feel it working for me. I’d feel unnatural, artificial, fake of sorts. I don’t post because it’s just not human.