A:
My new goal is to live "Off the book"
B:
"Off the grid" you mean?
A:
No, the book. I heard this thing on NPR about how there is this big book of every chess games, all the tournament ones at least, and so, you know, there's semi-formalized openings, so the beginnings of good games are all "on the book", they've all been done before, you know, that game for the first ten moves or whatever has literally been played potentially thousands of times. But then, there is some point n moves in where the game goes "off the book", and both players if they're good, know it, they know that moment, and there's this intense sort of release and now they both know that they're literally in an undefined space, no one has ever played this game before, and there's a total freedom there, they're blazing their own trail.
B:
So you want to get out of your super obvious Captain White-Collar w/ a Predictable Slight Leftist-Academic Bent book?
A:
Hey, be nice. At least I'm not reading from the I'm Not Reading from Any Book Because I'm a Musician, Oh Wait, I Was Just Reading from the Musician Book and I Like Money and Food Too It Turns Out So I Better Get a Job.
B:
Buurrrrrn. But the idea of the book is dumb, it's naive to be like "This game has never happened before" when maybe that exact configuration hasn't, but the whole point of getting good at chess is recognizing larger patterns, bigger chunks. Maybe like an exact configuration hasn't happened, but, you know, "White is attacking with his queen from the left and black has both knights gone and a rook up the right side" or whatever, that's happened.
A:
Right but
B:
Otherwise, it's dumb, everything's off the book, right? We're off the book right now, because you and I have never had this conversation at this time with this same configuration of atoms in the universe. But, you know, Pseudo-Deep Person Expresses Anxiety Regarding the Predictable Track His Life Is On While His Friend Listens Disinterestedly or Even Openly Antagonistically, this situation has obviously happened before. Although, normally the anxious person is a stoned 19 year old, not a sober 26?
A:
28
B:
28-year old.
A:
So
B:
And besides, isn't this super-related to your fantasy where you commit some kind of unspeakable act and are henceforth exiled to the wilderness and removed forever from any future human contact? Because you're a monster?
A:
Well, technically the fantasy there is sinking so low that there is no one left to disappoint, no one left that loves you. And the freedom that comes from that. But yeah, otherwise, totally, the Off the Book is just a reframing of the Unclean fantasy, they're isomorphic.