Endgame and Free Will
Life as a chess game
Chess is an imperfect metaphor for life. In chess, both sides start with identical pieces, the rules are known in advance, and nobody changes the board size mid-game. Life is different: some start with an extra queen, others without a rook, and the rules are discovered as you play—sometimes retroactively. And yet I keep returning to this metaphor, not because it's precise, but because it's honest about one thing: the game is finite, moves are irreversible, and every decision narrows the space of possible futures. And who is my opponent? Life itself, perhaps. But when I try to picture someone sitting across the board, the image that comes unbidden is a figure in a black cloak, with a scythe carefully propped against the table. The Seventh Seal, except without the knight's hope of winning. My opponent doesn't need to play well—he just needs to wait. Every move I make brings the game closer to its inevitable end, while he simply watches, patient and unhurried. This isn't pessimism; it's the initial condition of the game.
The Opening
The first twenty to twenty-five years of life resemble the opening. There's theory, there are books, there's other people's experience compressed into expectations. School, university, first job—all of it plays out according to patterns that existed before you. The Sicilian Defense of childhood: do your homework, listen to your elders, get a diploma. You don't choose these moves—you reproduce them.
What's most interesting about the opening is its determinism. The starting position isn't formed by you. Country of birth, family, language, era—all of this is already arranged on the board by the time you recognize yourself as a player. The first moves were made for you, and they constrain all subsequent decision space. You can philosophize about free will all you want, but try explaining that to someone born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That said, the opening is also a time of illusions. It seems like infinite options lie ahead. All pieces are in place, nothing is lost, any strategy is possible. This is a pleasant delusion. Every "harmless" opening move is a closed door—you just can't see it yet.
The Middlegame
Somewhere after thirty, the middlegame begins—the main phase that can't be learned from books. Templates run out, and every position becomes unique. Here you can no longer cite theory. Here you're alone with the board that you yourself built through previous moves.
The middlegame isn't pure freedom. It's life within constraints that have already formed. Each decision creates new constraints. Each "yes" closes off a dozen "nos." This isn't a complaint—it's the nature of the game.
Stoicism becomes relevant here—not as a philosophical doctrine, but as a practical skill. Don't complain that your opponent plays unfairly. Don't dream of a different board. Look at what you have and find the best move among those possible.
Most people spend the main part of their lives in the middlegame and don't notice the transition to the next phase. Pieces disappear gradually: first it seems like temporary losses, then—that you can still recover. And then you look at the board and realize you're playing an entirely different game.
The Endgame
I'm almost fifty, and I feel like I'm in the endgame. This isn't a metaphor for "dignified aging" or a story about accumulated capital. The endgame is the moment when you recognize a simple fact: a significant portion of your pieces has already been lost, and there's no getting them back.
What's interesting about the endgame is how easy it is to fall into denial. I catch myself trying to "game the rules": learning a new programming language, changing my technology stack, attempting to sharply redirect my trajectory. All of this looks like an attempt to bring back a queen that was captured long ago.
Is this a real strategy or a form of denial?
The Pawn That Can Become a Queen
When I was reasoning about all this as an impossible scenario, I suddenly remembered the promotion rule. A pawn that reaches the end of the board becomes a queen. This isn't a metaphor—it's a rule of the game.
You can't get back your youth or the years spent on failed projects. But you can advance some modest pawn—a skill, a project, an attitude toward the world—across the entire board. And then it transforms into something substantial.
If the queen is gone, play with pawns. If pawns are few—play with what you have.
What Counts as Winning
What does it even mean to "win" in such a game? In chess it's simple—checkmate the opponent's king. In life?
Not dying of hunger? Preserving clarity of mind until the end? Not betraying yourself? Or simply playing the game to completion without flipping the board in a fit of despair?
I don't know.
Free Will in the Endgame
Perhaps true free will manifests precisely in the endgame. Not before.
In the opening, there are too many illusions. It seems like everything is possible, but in reality you're reproducing others' patterns. In the middlegame, there are too many obligations—freedom is squeezed between debts and career, between family and ambitions. You seem to choose, but the choice space is determined by previous moves.
In the endgame, there are no more illusions. You see the board clearly: here's what remains, here's what's lost forever. Every move becomes conscious—not because you suddenly gained wisdom, but because few moves remain and the cost of error is obvious.
Maybe this is freedom: not the ability to do anything, but clear understanding of what you can and can no longer do. The determinism of the past doesn't disappear—you're still the player who started with the wrong opening and lost pieces in the middlegame. But within these constraints, space for choice remains. Small, narrowing with each move, but yours.
The game continues.