Struggling to break free.

Ref: Here.

In my work on the inner child I defined a concept called the intelligent trap. Here. There I asked the question of what happens when we use our intelligence to defend a wrong conclusion instead of questioning assumptions and looking for solutions in the here and now.

The article, struggling for survival, raises more questions than it attempts to answer. Or maybe its just a lament. To me the overall complexion seems to be for a return of "the good old days" rather than looking at what we have now and moving forward.

The crux is, was the old days really that good? Did it produce the results that we need? Was our chess getting any better?

Maybe a patron of those days made it easier for certain people to survive without having to raise their skill sets and so there is a need for this emotional crutch. But our chess didnt improve. How many years has it been and how many more years do we need to see that the experiment failed?

The article is actually quite revealing if we care to look at the evidence presented through fresh eyes. The big question really is, "Why did so many people try to come into chess and then leave prematurely?". Think on this.

Something must have swayed them to enter and something else drove them away.

As you know I have been getting feedback from the ground on the campaign to get us written criteria. We were "successful" in the attempt but only after a really ugly war on the blogs. Can you imagine this? Even something so transparently obvious had such terrible resistance. What a waste of energy. So what more can we do?

The feedback I am getting is that there is very little trust in MCF. The feeling seems to be that MCF has brought in selection for an unknown motive. There is alot of energy for change and better results but the energy is stuck. And it will continue to be stuck so long as MCF is still struggling to break free of the old forces that want MCF to return to "good old days". The days when we had a patron and lots of other sponsors dip their foot into chess and then beat a very very hasty retreat.

What does recent experience show you? What does the FGM experience demonstrate? The key to change is decisive action by MCF. Will MCF break free?