the short answer is, i’m a quitter.
the long list of excuses are:
i don’t enjoy losing.
i only find learning fun if i have noticeable progress.
there’s not enough time in the day.
chess isn’t fun.
i can only have so many hobbies.
i’d rather be reading.
i don’t have patience.
the fun of winning doesn’t outweigh the frustration of losing.
even if i’m better than everyone i know irl and better than 80% of players online i will still lose 50% of my games because of how online matching works.
no matter how much i improve it will never feel like i’m improving because i will continue to lose at the same rate.
chess means spending a lot of time and energy to feel frustrated.
chess isn’t fun.
chess distracts me from other more rewarding hobbies.
i don’t like planning and memorizing and just want to play with intuition.
i want to feel like i’m doing well.
the best players in the world don’t feel like they’re doing well.
chess isn’t actually fun.
i can’t find lessons that teach me concepts instead of showing me endless variations.
i don’t like doing things that i’m not good at.
after five years and hundreds of hours of videos and thousands of games my rating is lower than when i started.
chess is not rewarding it is only punishing.
i can’t come up with a reason to play chess other than to have fun and chess isn’t fun.
i thought that chess would get more fun as i improved but either i’ve not improved (which isn’t fun) or else chess gets less fun as you improve.
playing chess doesn’t create anything (except frustration).
chess is not a form of self expression.
chess is not intuitive.
the only reason to learn and to play chess is because other people do, as a skill it has no intrinsic value.
if i want to play a pointless game i’ll play something like fortnite where almost every round i can feel like i did something or had some fun even if i never win a single match.
in chess there is no metric other than wins and losses.
i get bored with things i can’t improve at.
there is no way to win more often than you lose unless you cheat.
none of my friends play chess.
i don’t know how to feel good or neutral about a game that i lost.
chess makes me feel bad more often than it makes me feel good.
what is the point of this? and why am i doing this to myself? are questions i often ask while playing chess.
i’d rather be writing or thinking about writing.
i’d rather learn to code or learn a language or learn literally anything useful.
chess is full of life lessons such as: you will never feel you are doing well, you will never make a lot of money, there will always be someone to crush and exploit you.
chess is too much like war, the only winning move is not to play.
Jonas David 