Sacrifice Your Queen

Recently, I was reminded of an axiom that I learned from a good man and scientist, a professor at a college university that I have had the privilege of knowing for a time. As I am a chess player, I understand the idea that he put forth. That idea was that sometimes, you have to sacrifice your queen.

What does this have to do with life? Very simple. Anyone who has ever played chess will know how difficult a decision it is to sacrifice your queen. She is your strongest piece, the single most versatile on the board. Losing her is one of the worst things that can happen to you, but it does not kill you by itself.

In life, we have our set of ideas, our strongly held conceptions of life and all. This is true in all parts of life: Religion, science, politics, how we raise our children or how to bake cookies. Some of these places, our opinions are not that strong, and we can be open to change. If we are unsure what the best path is, we are open to learning from others (hopefully). Two areas, Religion and Politics, are usually very, very strong opinions, and is why it is often dangerous to discuss them with someone whom you do not know their opinion on, to some extent, before hand.

These strong opinions make for harsh debate, but also fruitless debate, for neither side will ever learn from the other as long as they are close minded. The hardest thing for all of us to do is to open our minds to something we have always thought differently on, our strongly opinionated points of interest.

That is why I say, when you are coming against harsh criticism, reevaluate yourself and your stance. If you have to, for a moment, "sacrifice your queen." This is a great tool for debate, too. If you are flexible, you are able to learn.

However, for many of us, doing so has become almost as hard as giving up one of our children. You need not worry. An opinion can always be brought back. The only risk is that you may find you don't want it back. If that is the case, maybe you shouldn't be holding on to it so carefully.

Note: This post was more on Freethought than on politics. I just wanted to make it clear that this is not a purely political site. If you have any feelings about this, please post them. If you don't want to include your name or your user ID, anonymous comments are allowed on this blog.