The profundity of go

[Subotai]

Every once in a while I stop and reflect on the profundity of go. I think I may have made similar posts in the past but I think it is worth repeating.

What is go? A human construct created by one or several ordinary people thousands of years ago in what is now China. Governed by meaningless rules and where the result is similarly devoid of significance besides that which we give it. Yet for some reason or another this board game is still played all over the world today with little change.

Why?

When playing go there is a maddening vastness to this 19x19 labeled board that continues to give modern technology headaches. Though this art is pursued by a small group of cultists who waste their time studying and playing. The life of a go player is truly insignificant, whose only proof of existence are scratches on qipu 棋谱 that is only somewhat understood by the aforementioned cultists with too much time on their hands.

Yet when we play, practice, and study go there is this sense of massive gravity when we place those black and white stones on the grid. It is as if we are creating our own reality on the board as the stone's dance entrances the human conscious. With basic competence the exchange between two people becomes an invasive one where your opponent's very spirit is palpated by the stones you place on the board.

Though in our current diseased society where speed and instant gratification is all that matters our go cult is growing and shrinking at the same time. Growing in the sense that more people are becoming familiar with the game especially outside of Asia but shrinking in the respect of the people that play it. Where once go was a common past time for emperors to common people, now has been replaced with intellectuals and board game aficionados.

Will go outlast DOTA and candy crush? Of course it will, go has patiently continued throughout the centuries but will it ever reclaim it's status as the gentleman's art? Probably not with society's current trajectory though hopefully with all of us fanatical cultists out there more and more people will get to experience go.

[Anzu]

Yeah, it's pretty great. But there are better things out there, like music for example, or movies. Comic books, food, video games, encyclopedias etc

When playing go there is a maddening vastness to this 19x19 labeled board that continues to give modern technology headaches.

Yeah, right. Modern software can slaughter me with a nine-stone handicap.

[Subotai]

What makes those things better than go?

[Elom]

now I don't feel so bad about the fact I'll probably be slaughtered at the hands of some CPU's at 13 stones .