The mode of chess study that I find most compelling involves a parallel focus on art and life. By working very deeply on certain chess positions, the student can come to the essence of the situation and can then relate that essence outwards into his or her own psychological, social, and professional life. Similarly, almost all intense moments can be understood in an abstract manner that can translate into one's chess growth. While this idea might seem rather fanciful if you have never considered it, there are roots of similar learning processes that extend deep into the history of human wisdom. Man has long attempted to understand the cosmos by coming to a deeper knowledge of himself. In Hindu Vedantic philosophy, for example, the ultimate aim of oneness with Brahman, or the universal essence, is achieved through knowledge of Atman (self). The foundation of this idea lies in a sense that each being is a kernel of the larger whole. But we can't just immediately know everything about the world - by knowing the kernel deeply we can have a profound understanding of part of the great mystery, and in the deepest sense there is believed to be no distinction between the micro and the macro. 

	There is a lovely story in the Chandogya Upanishad which embodies this idea: A boy is instructed by his father to cut up a Banyan fruit. The boy finds seeds. Then the father asks the boy to cut up the seed. The boy searches, but is unable to find anything within the seed of the Banyan fruit. The father tells him: "This finest essence here, son, that you can't even see - look how on account of that finest essence this huge Banyan tree stands here. Believe, my son: the finest essence here, son, that you can't even see - that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the truth; that is atman."  Learning through reduction is at the core of this story - wisdom into the macrocosm through the microcosm. But the concept "Know thyself and you will know all things" is predicated on the ability to see the connections between yourself and all things. I believe that chess can help us do that.

	Have you ever noticed that getting very good at something helps in other areas of your life? A basketball player who has a breakthrough and starts to feel his or her stroke will often become a better baseball hitter. Not only did he learn of basketball, but his general physical intelligence improved. Living for a month on the sea may help you with anxiety in the city, because you are forced to let go of rigidly external control and give yourself to the unpredictable perils and movements of the ocean. Becoming a receptor in the physical sense can make you more attuned emotionally and relaxed psychologically. A young child who starts to seriously study chess will often become better at math and reading. This is because the child is not only learning how to think about chess but how to think and learn in general. 

	In the 11th century, The Neo-Confucian Philosopher Er Cheng Yishu wrote: 

One has to investigate the principle in one thing or one event exhaustively.... Things and the self are governed by the same principle. If you understand one, you understand the other, for the truth within and the truth without are identical. In its magnitude it reaches the height of Heaven and the depth of Earth, but in its refinement it constitutes the reason for being of every single thing. The student should appreciate both. 

	I believe that one of the most critical skills in this journey, is to gain the ability to see the underlying connections between things that don't initially appear to be related. The ancient chinese philosophy Taoism has a cosmology which is based on the interplay of yin and yang, two complimentary forces or qualities which harmonize our existence. Yin is the essence of receptiveness, empty space, non-aggression. Yang is the more masculine, aggressive energy that seems to dominate the western sensibility today. In the chess world, Karpov is the yin to Kasparov's yang. For years, Kasparov's wild, brilliant intuitive sacrificial attacks could only be neutralized by Karpov's mysterious prophylaxis. One might consider these forces to be quite different, but the Taoist might say that we can learn the yin from the yang, or even more abstractly "learn this from that." On reflection, this strange concept is remarkably potent. A man may never truly know water until he is desperate with thirst. How many children say they never really appreciated home until they left for college? Who knows the value of good health like the terminally ill? How often do we fail to appreciate what we have until it is gone? 

	The convergence of polar opposites, the understanding of something from its very absence, a sense for the interconnectedness of our existence - all of these ideas have swirled about humanity for millenia and can be remarkably powerful learning tools if harnessed. I might use the language of "learning the macrocosm from the microcosm." The Hindu will search for Brahman through Atman. The Neo-Confucian might search for the principle in one thing to gain access to the mysteries of other things. The Taoist might explore yang through profound knowledge of yin. However these ideas have been articulated across the world over the last 2500 years, it is clear that human wisdom has long pointed in the direction of finding the essential connections between apparently divergent aspects of our lives. 
	
	What does this have to do with chess? It is the basis for an all-encompassing approach to your study of the game. The deeper into chess you get, the less interference there will be blocking the pure expression of your personality onto the board. This, after all, is the reason for the richness of chess combat: different personalities meeting in the black and white jungle. As you mature as a student of the game, you will start to notice similar tendencies in your social, competitive, and artistic lives. What can follow is a growth process that opens itself to more than just one field. Suddenly walking down a hallway and noticing your reaction as you brush into somebody can make you a better chess player. And noticing your fear when the chess position gets too complicated can spur you to take on control issues and a possible terror of the unknown in your life. There are limitless possibilities for growth when we open our receptors to all the connections between our various pursuits, and I believe that nurturing one's ability to see such abstract connections can be an invaluable tool in chess and life. 

	There have been many moments in my career in which subtle psychological nuances made themselves felt simultaneously in my life and on the board. There was a time, for example, when I was 19 or 20 years old and I was living with my ex-girlfriend in a little village in Slovenia called Vrholvje. We lived with her family in their lovely mountainside village, often engulfed in sweeping mists and with a gorgeous view unto rolling valleys of cherry fields below. My lifestyle was simple and intense in those days. I would study chess, read books, write, take long walks into the forests listening to the birds and sometimes to audio tapes of Jack Kerouac reading his poetry to the background of soulful improvised blues. I spent tens of hours sitting next to an eerie bear cave on the upper edge of a huge valley, meditating and watching hawks soar below me. I fell in love with the village life, and my schedule was typically to spend 3 weeks in Vrholvje and then to travel, either alone or with my girlfriend, to a two week tournament in Greece, Amsterdam, Budapest, Germany, Italy, or Croatia, and then to return to Slovenia for another period of introspection. Inevitably, I came to associate Vrholvje with home, and in the throws of young love I was consistently depressed for the first couple days whenever I left for a tournament. I was on the road, away from my home in America, and whenever I settled into a rhythm in Slovenia I would have to pick up and begin another raw adventure which had the psychological brusqueness of slashing through untamed bush. None of this may seem unnatural considering the typical hang-ups of romantic young men and women, but what may be surprising is how my difficulty with adapting to new situations affected my chess game. Have a look.