One thing that I've noticed about chess is that a player is always successful at the expense of his opponent. You are always either pushing your opponent down or getting pushed down yourself. The only way you can show someone that you are a good chess player is by defeating them in a game.
In other hobbies, you have the opportunity to make yourself better without needing to win over anyone else. For example, when learning to play a musical instrument, your skill can be applauded by others, and the music itself can soothe the mind. When drawing/programming/building models, the end goal is a product that anyone can see or appreciate. You have an impressive skill that others would be delighted to observe. It's a win-win situation.
In view of the above, this is my question: why defeat someone else in a game (possibly weakening a friendship) when you could do another hobby which includes and inspires everyone? Couldn't we all achieve more if we focused our efforts on improving ourselves instead of competing against others?
Because competition is more fun than co-operation.
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.” — E. O. Wilson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitionen.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._O._Wilsonwell said Neverness
I saw this quote in a Lichess game:
"Chess is a contributor to net human unhappiness, since the pleasure of victory is greatly exceeded by the pain of defeat."
-Bill Hartston
In every sport you have to beat the opponent; this is how they work, it's the "continuation" of the war with another instrument; olympic game born even for this reason.
I don't think it's a matter of competition;at least not for me. I'm not a competitive guy, but I love to play chess; it's a game, I have fun and I get angry, it depends if I win or lose, but I have fun even if I lose and the game was very fun to play.
In other hobbies it's not the same? it depends. If you are very good at playing an istrument, some other people will sure envy you, same goes for work and all the other stuff.
I guess people play chess because they like to play chess,like other people like to stay for hours on a social network or in front of the tv.
Chessatom, your initial premise is highly flawed, since it infers that player a and b both qualify success in the same way. You also assert that bettering ourselves cannot mutually exist with competition. Ask Gary Kasparov whether he would have preferred Fischer to join his duopoly with Karpov, or whether he would have preferred Karpov to suddenly have gone poof as well, before he had scaled Olympus.
For me, success can include playing much better than ever before [regardless of the result!], a sweet victory, a pretty game enjoyed by both players. Saving a Rook endgame from a pawn down like Lazarus. It is many things and all things to all people. Those who fail to gain perspective that defeat *IS* progress if properly dealt with, will never gain further dimensions of success beyond the primitive emotional.
Success doesn't come at another's expense. It comes because of the effort they share together that propels the one forward. Call it deliberate practice if you're playing a friend. Don't keep results as a lifetime score. Give each other extra time for important moves. But if you lack the mental toolkit to deal with losses, I would argue you lack part of the toolkit on some other level to deal with life.
On a more positive note, if you yourself truly cannot abide such beastly conceptions as checkmate, you and your friends [or you alone] could read through hundreds of thousands of master games, and make training of it at the same time. Or just enjoy and savour the romantic masterpieces as art-cum-magic, similar to your point about music.
No one can win all the times.
