REMIND ME AGAIN, he said, HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE.
Death in «Small Gods» by Terry Pratchett
There’s a move in chess called a knight fork (although any piece can fork, but at least for beginners, a knight fork is usually surprising). You place the knight in a position to threaten two pieces of the opponent at the same time. Unless your opponent can remove your knight, or threaten your king or another high value piece, no matter what your opponent does, he loses one of the two pieces.
Usually a bad option. No matter what you do, it’s a bad choice, but you still have to chose.
There is something similar in life, when no matter what you do, either choice is bad, but you still have to make a choice. And if you’re like me, you carry the regret of the bad choice not taken with you.
The only good options I see, are to avoid the situation in the first place (without overgeneralizing and becoming timid) or to question the situation itself. The later provides some opportunity for creativity. Because perhaps there is a false dichotomy. Perhaps there really are more than those two bad choices. Perhaps there is another way. And it’s not that there are some things (like a threatened king) that put the situation in perspective. Perhaps there is a way to switch from playing chess to something else.
Just wondering.
