Before you cross the street take my hand.
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Beautiful Boy, John Lennon (1980)
There are many ways in which a midlife crisis can manifest. One manifestation is by way of a rash. If you have a family history of eczema, have a personal history of atopy, have a bone marrow transplant from a brother who also has a history of atopy, and - to top it all - are in the happy possession of an obsessive-compulsive trait, well then.. if you haven’t already found this monster then it will probably find you.
First, you should rule out the possibility of graft vs host disease. If the bone marrow transplant was performed 15 years prior to the development of the rash then GVHD is unlikely to be the cause. But it cannot be ruled out. Reactions attributed to the transplanted white cells fighting native host tissue carrying an assemblage of markers (which appear foreign to such cells) usually manifest soon after transplantation.
If you develop dermatographia soon after BMT then it is fair to say that your skin was reactive to physical insults due to some interaction between the transplanted blood cells and native skin tissue. The history of atopy in both donor and recipient probably increases the likelihood of such an interaction.
Cool. Wish I thought of that.
But twenty years ago I wouldn’t have said I had a skin problem.
If dermatographia goes away (or the novelty wears off) then you could safely assume that this peculiar skin reaction is not going to come back.
Well bugger me stupid.
Not only did it come back but it sneaked up when I wasn’t looking then morphed into something way bigger and much badder.
Eczema sucks.
For a start it is the very opposite of a "healthy glow”. You get self-conscious. And self-absorbed. It is intensely itchy. You can’t sleep. And - if it occurs on your hands - you can’t work. Sure, there are many ailments worse than a skin rash but for us middle age folk still managing to potter about it is an enormous distraction that gets in the way of doing all kinds of stuff.
Just when you reach an age when you think you’ve got it all sorted something like this turns up. It’s a bloody nuisance. At the midpoint of life the one thing worse than something that’s going to kill you quickly is something that will suck the joy out of whatever time is left remaining.
That sucks.
So what can you do to get through this mess? Well, you could write about it and hope that the problem resolves to your satisfaction.
I don’t particularly like chess.
You never really know what your opponent is going to play.
Chess is an ancient game played on a chequered board of 64 squares by two opponents each in the possession of 16 playable pieces. Chess has a strict set of rules that governs the play and provides an elegant illustration of how a sequence of moves really matters in the development and outcome of a game. The regular reinforcement that certain operations do not commute (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commutative_property) usefully carries over to real life whether you are learning to tie shoe laces or trying to fix a rotator cuff tear. The difference, of course, is that chess is a game. Tying laces (or fixing cuff tears) is not.
Bored? In need of some distraction?
Look up “chess openings” on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLssNbVBYrGcCjajrI7QtQi48nKOfy-W5O
If your name is Stjepan and you run the YouTube channel “Hanging Pawns” then you are, first and foremost, super-level awesome. But giving up a day job to play chess on a full-time basis.. at a relatively late stage in life.. I mean, who does that? For most people chess is not a job. How anyone sets out to make a career of it - twenty years after a computer program beat the world champion - is all sorts of crazy. Downright certifiable. You have got to wonder how he broke the news to his parents..
Like many things chess can be fun if you put a bit of effort in at the start. Same goes for baking cakes, or gardening, or computer games, or playing the stock market. That’s why these things are recreational activities for the vast majority of players. Going pro takes it up a notch. And I mean a big notch. Not everyone has the nous or tenacity to become a millionaire trading stocks. Even fewer become chess grandmasters without serious commitment from the age when fine motor skills accomplish the sequence of moves that result in tied laces.
You got this.
Now try this.
Chess intrigues me. And, quite honesty, I appreciate how some people are completely captivated by the game. But as a person familiar with the rules of engagement yet managing to get spanked in his first competition match with the 4-move scholar’s mate - as school chess captain no less - I, like many others, moved on in life (in a direction opposite to a pointless board game). Truth be told, I am terrible at chess. The only reason why I was selected as chess captain was the fact that no one at my school wanted to play and I just happen to be an asthmatic, spectacle-wearing Asian who did ok at maths. Voila! Chess captain.
One sure way to stop playing chess is to be humiliated out of it. And if being good at chess signals skill and intelligence then the converse carries certain implications. A truly dire situation if you are asthmatic, short-sighted, have poor interpersonal skills, and are no good at sports.
WTF?
“Natural Born Killer” - Woody Harrison goes for scholar’s mate against Garry Kasparov
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Mh14MEXgY
Well, a lot of water has passed under that bridge.
RoboBeth in the real world on chess.com.
The Queen’s Gambit is a wonderful Netflix series that has injected an enormous amount of style and charisma to this decidedly unstylish and uncharismatic area of human activity. The series follows Beth Harmon’s progression from troubled teenager to (troubled) chess stardom and has broad appeal: drawing in the uninitiated while delighting the hard core enthusiast. That’s quite a feat. The fact that the latter group of nerds and professionals enthusiastically pull apart the games - seen only obliquely by the majority of the audience - and still draw immense pleasure from the sequence of play (taken from historical matches and even improved upon) shows a commitment to detail that adds depth and believability to a work of total fiction. Respect for subject matter and audience is the magic ingredient of a good storyteller. In this case it underscores and amplifies the compelling human interactions and riveting entertainment on screen.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MaMv4cQtEnw
While escapism and distraction have their place, the real world continues to roll on. And in the real world I have to deal with a rash. Although I could watch Netflix movies and YouTube videos all day that doesn’t remove me far enough from the hell breaking through my skin. Curiously, playing chess does. At least for a while.
Which brings me to chess.com.
chess.com is the most popular chess website/ app for playing games against a human opponent or a chess engine detuned to certain levels of play. The bots that interface between the engine and subscriber have little cartoon faces and playing characteristics that dominate their style of play. As the rating goes up the bots are programmed to make fewer blunders so the presentation comes across quite convincingly (although all bots make instantaneous moves). Playing chess against a computer using a smart phone means that you can carry a game in your pocket and pause at any time your attention needs to be directed elsewhere. That’s a very agreeable situation in a modern world. In that sense chess.com, like fast food and online social networks, provides a convenient simulacrum for the real thing.
In fact, I so enjoyed playing chess on chess.com that I went out and bought my first tablet just to play games against bots.
I mostly lose but when I was set to win the occasional game and lost only because my finger lifted off the phone’s touchscreen before the square of an intended position I knew it was time to move to a bigger screen with bigger pieces.
Armed with a tablet I was ready to hit the big time..
Arrrgh!
I . will . destroy . you .
Make way for the next grandmaster..
.. oh..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system
Big screen or not the problem, of course, is that you can only ever get so far without proper grind and study. This, unfortunately, applies to everything. Chess included.
Conveniently chess.com also provides learning modules and puzzles for those keen to improve their game. Anyone who has done them will be aware that some tactics and strategies hit home and are easily remembered while others are soon forgotten. Playing more games reinforces lessons that have roosted but typically not those that flew away before they could perch. This is where directed learning (say, a chess coach) with regular reinforcement helps in the development of a skillset. But, if that’s not your thing, you can still blunder your way through enough games that, eventually, you blunder less. But you need to be careful. As the game becomes harder and tactics and strategies gain complexity the simple play of activating certain pieces on certain squares ain’t going to cut it against a stronger player.
Ideally you should set up a training plan. As luck would have it a huge number of people find joy in the game of chess and an equally huge resource base exists to help those serious about improving their game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deqa8sFnct8
Chess can be beautiful. Beth Harmon says that in the Netflix miniseries and many, many people before her have said that as well. That a common board game with set pieces and moves can be called beautiful says a lot about the human mind. Beauty is not easy to define but it is something that we humans are very much drawn to. Given so many people playing chess at so many levels see beauty in a certain sequence of moves suggests that the synaptic connections activated in such situations triggers a very pleasurable response. It might be ephemeral but chess can be beautiful. Hit that pleasure button enough times and you get a habit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUQQ4dym5ZU
As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and different strokes for different folks. The Evan’s Gambit is certainly beautiful to watch and I expect it can be beautiful to play in the hands of more accomplished players. But, unlike music, literature or the visual arts, chess occupies an awkward position in society. Sure, it is a leisure activity with a long, proud history. And it still holds a whiff of elitism which, depending on where you stand, taints or burnishes its reputation. But the moves of a chess game do not tickle the same part of the brain reserved for the established arts. Sure, the outcome of joy and pleasure might be the same, but the processing appears to occur in a rather different, more analytical area.
Nowadays chess is best described as a sport. Like sport, many people from all walks of life and all levels of play happily participate in the activity while many fans happily watch and comment on games played at the elite level. Players that compete often form into teams and congregate in clubs. And there is usually a winner and loser after each match. There are a few superstars that make a decent living from playing (or promoting) chess with the vast majority of competitive players paying to participate rather than the other way around. For all intents and purposes this is a sport - even if tactics and strategy are the only performance variables at play.
Superstar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJre8gxt214
Back to me (as all life logs need to return to the person that authors it). As said before, I possess no natural gifts that incline me anywhere beyond a passing interest in chess. I cannot remember the moves of the game I am actually playing much less dissect and analyse the better options available. Remembering opening tactics might be borderline doable but my middle game is a mishmash of misadventure and miscalculation and studying the end game is simply out of the question. This is not the path to chess enlightenment. But when you have a rash and are struggling to get back to the right headspace then you typically seek something - anything - that will help you get there. Personally, I’m not so sure that such entities provide progression back to the correct headspace or just act as a suitably distracting filler in-between, but if you are reading this post then I am back where I need to be. At least temporarily. And chess and chess.com helped me get there.
Indeed, 2020 was a tough year for everyone.
But forget you. Back to me.
Reflection is a funny thing in that it plays out like a sequence of events from The Truman Show (or a sequence from any Hollywood blockbuster for that matter). Reflection highlights only certain elements of a messy totality and thereby avails it to the twin barrels of enquiry and analysis. Even then chasing causality for a rash is not as straightforward as it might seem. Once recognition has been accepted a host of possible causes and influencing factors come to light. It doesn’t help that my rash has a wind-up and wind-down period lasting anywhere from 2 to 5 weeks and it sometimes appears for no apparent reason whatsoever. It suffices to say that I’ve drawn up a detailed spreadsheet covering a multitude of triggering factors with treatment options ranging from immunosuppressants to antidepressants. I’m also under the care of a dermatologist. Surprisingly, ignoring all treatment options works just as well. Which indicates that nothing really works.
Which is why I started playing chess.
Next step, dupilumab. Hmmm..
Compliance is not my strong point. This often counters my maxim: don’t do anything stupid. So I’m often wrestling between where I want to be and where people of authority tell me I should be. Treatment advice provided by a trained professional is worthy of attention. And this medication demands compliance. I know nothing about eczema apart from the fact that I’ve got it. I also recognise that this rash now waxes and wanes as a singular, continuous chain of events yet I still get the impression that, somehow, I will beat it. Eventually.. As silly as it sounds a skin rash like this can really do your head in.
Dupilumab is a new medication that made it to the PBS (Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme) at the time when I had quite enough of this rash and reality thing. It is an injectable monoclonal antibody that interferes with the interaction between the immune system and the skin. This means that dupilumab specifically targets the problem of atopic eczema. It isn’t magic. But it comes pretty close.
This really should be a post about eczema, the search for its causation, and the efficacy of dupilumab. But when I started writing this back in September 2020 I was thinking about how little we actively contribute to where we are today. A rumination that the stories we consciously curate - by linking certain events from our past and projecting them into the future - is not only a poor reflection of the totality of our experiences but also pays little credit to the enormous force of innumerable externalities for which we cannot select or control. At the time I was reestablishing an interest in chess and was quite taken by the non-commutability of the play. A book opening followed by a few good, some bad, and many questionable choices put me into a position that I then had to play out to the end. Or simply resign from. Could there be something I could learn from that? Luckily, chess is a game and, apart from teaching a child about the importance of choices and the sequence in which they are made, cannot be used as a lens on life.
Another thing: playing against bots on chess.com offloads any interpersonal burden that might come from one human winning and the other losing.
So I started writing about chess and chess.com with the idea that this might lead to some useful insight that I could paste into a scrapbook for future reference. The problem is that I started playing chess as an absorbing distraction, not because I had any aptitude for the game, nor, dare I say, even a passing interest in it. Like everything else, the more I played the better I got and, with time, interest developed. Gratification is a powerful incentive and, like Mr Pavlov’s dog, I’m up for it. But, when it comes to chess, I can’t be arsed to do anything that smells like work. If a chess lesson cannot be packaged into a format that passes for relaxation and entertainment then it’s not for me.
Soooo good.
Which is why I’m now stuck on bots I can’t beat.
Hi Joel. Let’s play. Again.
As my rash raged into another dimension it dawned on me that playing chess had become a game of control - as if chess restrained some inner demon responsible for my rash. Controlling the play and winning a game became just as important as the game itself. Sadly (for any pretensions of a belated entry into competitive chess) that knowledge arrived at the same time as I recognised that I had neither the aptitude nor the drive to improve my game beyond that of the tourist. The focus and concentration that took me to a level between novice and competence came to a standstill simply because I don’t possess the natural talent nor the willpower to put in the effort to up the game. Chess then failed to be a suitably absorbing distraction for a rash.
A month later my dermatologist recommended I commence dupilumab.
You never really know what your opponent is going to play.
In the fifty years I have been on this planet I have found that the need to control one’s narrative is a powerful driver of identity and a useful motivator in the conscious pursuit of excellence. It is also the millstone we wear in a search for inner peace. Writing something like this is what someone of my disposition does because order and narrative is the only path we have for what the rest of the world sees as sanity. Posting something like this is a different matter altogether. In any case it’s done.
A post like this is not my life. In many ways it is not even a true reflection of it. It is a cartoon where every feature is factual and true yet somehow fails to be anything. Empty. The loneliest word in the world. I don’t consider myself a chess player. And I most certainly am not a writer. I am, like you, a journeyman.
True enlightenment does not need a storyline to affirm its existence.
Deep down I understand what that means.
But until then, I write.
Cor hominis disponit viam suam: sed Domini est dirigere gressus eius.
(A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.)
Old Testament: Proverbs, xvi, 9. (c.350 BC)
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