The Human Volcano

The Human Volcano

What is a human volcano?

A "human volcano" is a person who has been seen to have extreme anger issues and generally behaves in a a way that is destructive to both oneself and other people.

These people may seem irritable all the time and may easily get offended by seemingly trivial events.

Why do some people end up like this?

My Eruptions

While I don't claim to have all the answers, I can certainly talk from personal experience. Yes. I was once a human volcano. I grew up feeling a lot of pressure from my family, school teachers and fellow pupils to be a certain way. While this is normal for all of us, there were certain things that I found too much to take. For one thing, I was occasionally bullied in school and that hurt my self-esteem. However, bullying did not always end at school. There were times when I would feel bulled at home too. I was bullied mainly for my curly hair, my thoughts being spoken out loud and not having any friends.

Throughout my conscious childhood, I received many dismissive words about my way of being from my family. This left me feeling not only angry but neglected also. My anger was at it's worst when I was 16 years old. At that point in time, I had regular fallouts with my mother because of her dismissive language towards me. She would call me "mad" and "mental" on a regular basis. This was the last thing I needed when I was taking my GCSEs and preparing for college.

Why anger is only half the problem

There are many people out there who are considered to have an anger problem. However, I believe that in most cases that anger is only half the problem with "human volcanoes" There is usually a deeper underlying problem that is yet to be resolved or even talked about.

The magma in you soul

There are many things out there that make us "boil over" and provoke what I call the "magma" of the soul. When the magma get too much we start to "erupt" and the emotional "lava" comes out. There are many causes of "magma" in our soul. like trauma, anger, feelings of inferiority, emotional pain, insults, hostile environments, stress, pressure, fear and frustration which if allowed to overflow becomes emotional lava to the other person.

While it is normal to experience a lot of the above, when they have accumulated for a long time without resolution, the "magma" eventually becomes "lava" the consequences can be very damaging both the the individual and people close to the individual.

How to heal a human volcano

As we have learnt above, anger is like a fire. If it is not deal with quickly, then a catastrophe occurs. So how do we deal with anger? How do we cool the lava and flames within us?

While I do not claim to be an expert on this matter, I can certainly make positive suggestions based on my personal experiences. I think these 4 steps will be of some help to cool the flames of anger:

1). Realisation

I think the first step of any pain healing process is the realisation of the pain itself. Anger in the most extreme sense is a form of pain and we have to realise what is hurting us before it leads to something catastrophic for both you and your loved ones.

2. Find the triggers

If you look at your anger carefully, you will notice that your anger takes on a certain pattern or correlation of events. I realised in my own personal experience that it was the harsh words of other people that was the main cause of my anger. I would easily get upset or offended by what someone said to me. When I realised this I decided to give myself this mantra or affirmation that I took to my meditation practice. The mantra was "There words are not me. My words are not them". The whole point of this phrases was to detach my mind from the words that other people would say to me. It would also make me realise that I can also say harsh words to other people. When I practised this, I realised a positive difference it made to the way I absorbed other people's words. I was less impacted  by them.

Knowing your triggers and finding a solution can really help you make good progress towards healing the inner wounds of anger.

3. Self Awareness and acceptance

When we are angry, we often lose presence and self awareness. When anger is intense we lose conscience of our words and actions towards other people. How can we improve our conscience and awareness of our thoughts and feelings? How can we manage them better? In my experience my cure for my eruptions was meditation. Try spending 10 minutes a day to close your eyes, breath deeply and listen to your thoughts and feeling during this time.

Important Note: Do NOT  try to change your thoughts or feelings at any point during this exercise.  The whole point of this is to be aware of what you are really thinking without judgement. If you are angry at his moment then just accept that feeling for what it is. Thoughts will come and thoughts will go. Accept it for what it is.

Even a simple awareness of your anger can help you deal with your anger better. If you are able to increase your awareness of your thoughts and feelings then you will have better management of them.

4. Self-Love

If you look at our world carefully, we an see that there is a lot of hate in this world. You can also see that there are many things out there that actually teach us to hate ourselves for who we are. Our society tell us to conform with others and treat us like we are all meant to be the same as each other. This is a common mis-interpretation that virtually every society has. We are all different and we should be able to embrace the qualities that makes us unique and special.

Like in the last step above yon can spend 10 minutes of meditation a day or whatever spare time you have to yourself to close your eyes or gaze lightly on a spot, focus no your breathing and quietly and slowly say in your own mind a mantra or affirmation like "I am loved" or "I am worthy of love" . We all deserve love and we all deserve to embrace our own unique experience.

Summary

I have always believed that anger is the world's most mis-understood emotion. I think this is because we only see the surface layer of anger. The "aggression" or the "attack" that is simply the release of the emotional pain. I hope I have given some insight into the reality of anger and what can be found inside an angry person.

Hopefully, one day, we can look at anger with loving kindness and cool the lava and flames of the human volcano. With practise, patience, time and love, the human volcano becomes a peaceful and serene human lake.

Loving Language: Part 1: The meaning of Love

Loving Language: Part 1: The Meaning of Love

Language and in particular the nature of language has always played a very important part of my life. I have naturally been studious about words and the definition of words and above all things, the usage or perhaps to put it more accurately, the mis-usage of language.

As I have got older, I have become more and more aware of how abused the English language has become. There are so many people out there who have no real conscience of even a consciousness of what comes out of their mouth. I have suffered very deeply because of this. I have had so many people in my life speak to me in a rather upsetting way.

There are so many people in our lives that we claim to love. We say "I love you" to our parents, grand-parents, children, grand-children, aunties, uncles, nephews, nieces, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends and sometimes even just friends, but how many of us actually know what love is? Let's look at what "love" really means.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there are no less than 5 different definitions of the word "love".

1). A strong feeling of affection.

2). A strong feeling of sexual linked with sexual affection.

3). A great interest and pleasure in something.

4). A persoin of thing that one loves.

5). (in tennis, squash etc) a score of zero.

The last definition is one that is reserved for racket sports so I wont go into any details about it as it explains itself quite clearly, however, the rest of the definitions may feel rather vague to some people so lets try it make sense of them.

The first 2 definitions use the word "affection". Affection is a synonym for love and romance. There are many others we can add like "passion", "compassion" and "warmth". So "love" can be any words in one. The forth definition refers to the usage of the word "love" as a noun, for example,"My love" or "Your love".

At a deeper level, we realise that all of the 5 definitions above could have been definitions for other words. Definitions 1 and 4 could have been a definition for "warmth" while definition 2 could been for "attraction" and definition 3 could have been for "passion".

After reading all this, you might be asking yourself "Isn't there an easier way to understand what love really is?" Well personally, I believe that there is an easier way to understand what love is.

To put it simply, love is about positive emotion. When we "love" someone, something or some activity, it means that the subject in question is giving us positive emotion.

This for me is the real meaning of love. Positive emotion.

"Life is too short": What does it mean?

Life is too short: What does it mean?

Misunderstanding

A quick confession. If you told me what "life is too short" meant before this month (October 2017) I would have interpreted it in a very bad way. I would have confused the term for something like "your life will end shortly". The difficulty I have always had with phrases is that they are just a short way of saying something that often needs to be explained in depth in order for it to be understood properly.

However, this month I have received the November 2017 edition of the American Buddhist magazine, "Lion's roar" and it explained everything in a beautiful and touching way and in a way where everything simply made sense. To put it simply, we are impermanent. If we look at our lives carefully, a lot of us have a habit of clinging on to something and try to give it a feeling of permanence. this is an illusion that we like to give ourselves. We try to hold on to life even though we know deep down that it will all come to an end one day.

Mental Baggage

Throughout our lives,we are given both by ourselves and by other people different names, identities. personalities, titles and other descriptions of the self. However, when we are born, none of these things existed. When we are born, we were just a being. That was literally all we were. Just a sentient being. Just something that breathes and moves. There was no version, definition or perception of us. We were just ... well.. us. As life progresses and we get older and get more attuned to the world, we are given "Mental baggage" from other people. We are told that we are this, that and the other, that we have this,that and the other and that we can or cannot or even will or will not be this, that and the other.

Here is the poem that i discovered in the final page before the back cover of the magazine mentioned above. I love this poem, because it helps us realise the purity of being.

I Knew You Before

by Karen Maezen Miller

I knew you before were a victim

before you were a wreck, a mess, and a bomb.

Without a crowning success or crippling failure.

Before you had an issue, an axe, or a cross.

No disorder ,no syndrome, no label-

undiagnosed,

without a blemish or scar.

Before that night and the morning after,

before the fall, the crash, the crime,

without an upgrade or makeover.

Version 0.0

No story,

no narration, no closed captioning,

no footnotes and no bonus features,

before you remembered to forget and forgot to remember.

I knew you before you were what you say-

what you think,what you fear, what you know.

Do you know yourself before?

The one thing that came to my attention when reading this poem was that this is the way we were when we were born. without any agendas. This is also the way we will be when we die. Without agendas. When we die, all conceptualisation of ourselves will cease. In other words, when we die, we are free from concepts and we are just who we were when we are born. Empty. Empty of concepts. We came into the word with nothing an we leave the world with nothing.

Equality in death.

A friend of mine told me that death is the ultimate equaliser. When we are dead, we are all the same. No one is superior or inferior to any other person when we all die, because superiority and inferiority are both concepts of the mind. Therefore, death is a liberator that makes us return to our true self. Once we realise all this about death, we lose our need to hold on to life and we can live our life to the full.

Moral of the story: Live your life! Live your dreams! Don't be overwhelmed by what life throws at you! Don't listen to your doubters, your haters our you criticisers.

I will leave you with Prince EA.

EVERYBODY DIES, BUT NOT EVERYBODY LIVES.

Decisions,Un-decisions and Re-decisions

Decisions, Un-decisions and Re-decisions

In my own personal life, making decisions is a very hard and sometimes even a painful process. I often spend months, even years working out wherever a certain decision is good for me or not.

The thing that makes the decision-making process even worse for me is that when I finally have made a decision, it often gets challenged and questioned by other people.There are time when I am told to re-think ore even change me decision . This is very annoying  for me as I often take a ling time to make decisions for me as I often take a ling time to make decisions in the first place. One thing for sure is that if I am not allowed to make my own decisions at the age of 31 the there is something seriously wrong with the society that I live in.

I've realised now trust sometimes you have to trust your own heart when it comes to your own decisions. If it doesn't feel right, the it probably isn't.

I have spent the most recent years of my life being encouraged to re-think and undo certain decisions. In the end, I eventually do what my heart tells me to do. The mind can be a great tool for making rational decisions but when it comes to emotional well being, your heart is your teacher and director. I think I need to balance mind-orientated thinking with what the heart tells me. 

When you make decisions, do you listen to your mind or your heart? Here is American spiritual teacher Ram Dass who gives his thoughts in this lecture.

A Toxic Relationship

I have decide to do this entry at the spur of the moment so I do apologise if I sound a bit emotional.

I received a phone call on Thursday 14th September 2017 before the clubs AGM which was taking place the same evening. I did not attend the meeting. Why? Because I was so overwhelmed and overloaded by the things I heard. This phone call lasted almost an hour. It was about an e-mail that I gave to this person who was an important member of my chess club basically saying that I did not like his verbal etiquette. I also mentioned that I did not want to play for him in the forth coming season because I've realised that I am easily overwhelmed by his behaviour. He often speaks dismissively about people and has previously said some upsetting things about how I captained the club's rapid-play teams.

Initially, this phone call was about the idea that I will be payed to play for his teams because I mentioned that I didn't like the idea of working for him without payment. Because I mentioned the word "payment" in this e-mail he thought that I actually wanted to be payed for playing in matches for his team. What I was trying to explain was that my chess was not officially paid work and yet I am having to be overwhelmed by his way of speaking and general aura.

Over the years, I have heard all sorts of people tell me things like " You have to make allowances" , " You've got to make leeway" , "Relationships have to be worked at" , "Oh, sometimes he is just like that" and "He has had a hard day/week/life".

While I do accept that all people have flaws and occasionally make mistakes, it also seems that society is creating more and more excuses for the mistakes. It is almost as if we have given up trying to improve ourselves.

I just think that there comes a time when enough is enough and I feel like this person is just wearing me out with his inability to talk in a responsible way. It is clear to me that he is not conscious speaker. Why should I continue working for a person who in the long-term only makes me and other people suffer?

I believe that my life deserves better than to be around a person who only feeds me with negative energy and makes me and others feel bad about themselves.

I do my best to work with others and most of the people that I have met in my life have been wonderful and have been of great help to me in many different ways. However, every now and then we meet a "rotten apple" who ruins our experience of life in some way.

This have been an emotional entry so I do apologise if I sounded over-the-top in certain parts, but at the same time, a bad relationship is like a fire. It will burn you inside if you don't get out of it before too long.

At the end of the day, we all deserve to be treated with respect and I just don't see the point in spending of my life working for a person who is disrespectful to others.

I wish you all well in your relationships.

7 tips for dealing with loneliness.

1). Realise that loneliness is an illusion of the mind.

Loneliness is an illusion off the mind and confuses us into thinking that we are on our own. The thought of loneliness happens often when we believe then there is no one we can relate to or get on with. However there are billions of beings on this planet and we all connected with each other. In the end, we all want one thing. Happiness. 😊

2). We are all connected.

As mentioned above, we are all beings are connected to each other. All of life is dependant on one another. Our plants provide us with oxygen. Our parents provide us with basic knowledge, wisdom and love. Water provides us with hydration. Nature provides us with unconditional love.

3). Live in the moment.

If you are feeling lonely, it could be because you are despairing from the past or worrying about the future. In both cases, you have lost touch with the present moment. When we are in the present moment, when we are in the NOW of life, we realise that we can be happy right NOW. Learn to live in this moment. The past was what it was and the the future will be whatever it will be.

4).You do not need other people or things to make you happy.

We live in a very materialistic world and it creates an illusion the the more we have, the happier we will be. This however is a dangerous psychological trap. We start to accumulate things that we actually don't need. More to the point of this blog, some of us believe that we that we have to be popular to be happy. This is a lie that society likes to tell us and believing it leads to a lot of stress, pressure and for many of us, a lot of misery. Remember, you can be happy on your own and you do not need to depend on anyone for happiness. It is better to go on the right path on your own that go on the wrong path with everyone else.

5). Realise that there are 2 versions of the self.

I have realised recently in my own spiritual journey that there are 2 versions of the self. The inner-self and the outer-self. The inner-self is your internal world. The inner body and your honest thoughts and feelings. The outer-self is your outer body and the way your present yourself to others. Try to have a relationship with yourself and see if there is a connection between the inner-self and the outer-self.

6). Remember that you are NOT what other people think of you.

One of the causes of loneliness is believing everything that other people say to you without questioning the validity of what was said by the other person. remember that other people's opinions, comments, and statements are more of a reflection of the other person than it is about you. To put all of this in another way; don't try to please everybody.

7). Learn to love yourself.

Remember that you ARE worthy of love. There isn't a single person that is not worthy of love. Everyone has value. Everyone has something to give and gain. Practice self-love, self-appreciation, self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. Learn how to be your own best friend by understanding your inner world and how it affects your outer-self and the outer-world and inner peace will come naturally.

I will end this blog with a beautiful message from the universe. I hope these messages will be helpful and healing to all who read them. Good Luck and Thank you for reading.

Richard Davis.

My road to Chess glory: Part 2: The mystery illness.

At this point in time, I was starting to get fed up of chess and I desperately wanted to take a break from the game as I continued life in a dysfunctional state. I ended 2010 feeling weak and feeble, with headaches, colds, sleeping problems and fatigue threatening to ruin the quality of my life forever. My frustration got worse with every defeat as I was going through a phase of "Chess Blindness" were I was struggling to see certain details of a chess position. Despite all of this, I still found myself playing 5 games for my county in the 2010/11 season. I remember feeling weak in each one of them. The long trips in other people's cars and the conversations that I had no interest in just sapped my already limited energy even more.

In Early 2011, I was taken to an appointment at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton for a CAT scan to see if there is anything wrong with my brain in order to try to find an answer to why I was getting frequent persistant headaches. Eventually, the doctor confirmed that I actually had a healthy brain but also diagnosed me with sinusitis. They said that it was blockage in the sinuses that was causing the headaches.

By the spring of 2011 I was seriously contemplating retirement as I was consistently and persistently suffering from ailments.

I would normally play in the Surrey Individual tournaments during the summer, but in 2011 I decided to take a break from the game as I continued to feel dysfunctional with my seemingly never-ending symptoms. This was the kind of break I waited all season for. With all of my struggles both on and off the chessboard, losing game after game, losing so many days at work, losing trust with my own body and ultimately, losing my confidence in life.

So what else to do during the summer? During the spring of 2011 I was made aware about a 6-week course called "Loving Life" by my local Buddhist centre where I had been attending meditation classes since early 2010. It was a course that was based on a meditation practice called the "Metta Bhavana" or "The development of loving kindness". The aim of the course is to explore positive emotion for ourselves and for other people. Every session was on a Tuesday night from 7 to 9:30 pm. However, I remember feeling faint after the second session and one of the ordained Buddhists who was co-leading the course giving me a glass of water to help regain my conscience. Despite this experience, it was an enjoyable course overall where we really looked into the meaning of love, compassion, self respect and inner peace.

In July 2011 I was invited to my local hospital Croydon University Hospital. (Formally Mayday Hospital) to see an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. She tried to stick a small telescope in my nostrils. (Sounds painful and it was) I was so sensitive to the telescope that before she could see anything inside my nostrils I reacted with a violent irritation. Shaking my head and rubbing my nose at lightning speed. The doctor eventually re-diagnosed me with allergic rhinitis, better known as hay-fever. Finally my mystery illness had a name!

My road to Chess glory. Part 1: Wernick win to persistant illness.

On Monday the 15th of May 2017, I was confirmed as the 2016/17 CCF Division 1 Champion. This was only my 2nd major individual title in my over-the-board Chess career. My first since winning the Wernick Cup in 2009. This season I have also been the captain of 2 championship winning teams. My "Dragon Kings" Long-Play team won their division in the Super-League and promotion to the top division, The "Premiership" while at my home club, South Norwood, I lead them to winning the Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy.So what has been my secret? Why has it taken me so long to win individual title number 2?As far as my own individual success is concerned, I found that the best way of playing in tournaments is to prepare for different tournament situations. I now have a way of playing when I am ahead in tournaments, a way of playing when I am chasing the lead in tournaments and a way of playing a "must win" game. This structure has helped me stay competitive in tournaments and is based on a repertoire that fits to my strengths as a chess player. I also apply this structure to team tournaments. I always want to know what kind of situation my team is in so that I know how to approach my own game when playing in a team.However I have also suffered many illnesses in the last 7-and-a-half years and has heavily affected my chess performances and my functionality in general. In January, I had a serious flu in 2010 and I could feel my functionality both physically and mentally severely affected. I couldn't walk properly, I couldn't breathe properly and I couldn't think properly. Everyday was as if Mohammad Ali knocked me out the previous night. Little did I know that that was the start of 19 month period of continuous illness. Every day from January 2010 to July 2011 I felt unwell to one extent or another. If it was not one thing it was another. Headaches, flu symptoms and fatigue dominated my life at that point in time. I thought it would never end. Not even the doctors seemed to understand what I was going through at the time. To make things worse. I had to move home. I the summer of 2010, my neighbours and I who were at the time living in shared accommodation in nice houses were busy packing their belongings to move South Croydon to Norbury. That same summer, I recorded my worst ever tournament performance in the Felce Cup, scoring just half a point (one draw) in 6 games.On Monday the 11th of October 2010, we all moved into single bedroom flats.

Autism and Asperger's: What is it? My perspective.

Today is World Autism Awareness day, and back in 1996 at the age of 10, I was put on that spectrum by a psychiatrist, diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome.

In recent times, I have been wondering what Asperger Syndrome really is. I mean really!

Throughout my life, I have had Autism and Asperger Syndrome be described as a whole variety of things. A mental illness, a learning disability, a learning difficulty, a mental health issue, a neurological disorder, a "Mind-blindness" and even a disease!

There are so many terms that Autism and Asperger Syndrome are given and virtually all of these terms come from some so-called "professional". So what is Autism and Asperger Syndrome. I should also mention at this point that both Autism and Asperger Syndrome are collectively called Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) although, how "disordered" are ASD people exactly? 

So what do I think of these terms? Well, I am going to give an answer to this question that is going to be a lot simpler than the shortlist above.

To me, Autism and Asperger Syndrome are nothing more that a difference in the way people think and perceive things. The only reason any term ever exists is because someone sees something different in someone or something.

To me, that's what Asperger's really is. A difference! If the world was better able to accept the differences in people than we wouldn't need a lot of these terms that exist today.

As far as my own life is concerned, "Asperger Syndrome" is just a term for others to understand me and people like me better. As far as I am concerned, I am just another human being. I do not need to give myself any kind of label because as far as I am concerned, I am just me! I am just good old Richard!

If the world learned to understand that different people are just different and not better or worse than our world will be a much better place and our lives will be a lot more enriching.

Autistic people are just different. That's It! Once you realise that you don't have to create anymore stories about what an ASD person is.

Happy April everyone and remember, embrace difference!

Why NOT finding love may have been the best thing for me.

I have a confession to make. I will be 31 next month and I am still single. Well, to say that I am "single" is an understatement. Not only am I single but I am also do not have any really close friends. In fact, I would go as far as saying that I haven't really had a lot of success with people. I have often found myself in fall-outs with so many people and on many occasions that I have often left talks feeling emotionally destroyed. 

There has been times when I have questioned my own ability to communicate to people successfully, and there has also been times where I have felt that I am simply destined to find myself in an argument at some point.

Many people claim that I "take things too literally" and that is because many people in my life communicate in ways that I simply do not understand. Many people use phrases and other forms of indirect language that mentally take me in the wrong direction. This has often lead me to be either confused or offended by their words.

However, I have now realised that most of the mishaps that have had in verbal communication is not my fault because I have grown up in an environment where most people often speak without conscience and are often not even aware of the words that they are saying. I have come to the conclusion that maybe it is simply not trying to be too close to somebody as it often ends in heartbreak in the end.

Maybe I will have a girlfriend one day, but I guess I've just got to accept that not many people think about language the same way that I do.

The Myth of Normal

The myth of Normal.

"You are not normal" (but who is?)

One of the things that I (like many asperger people) have had to endure throughout my life is to be told that I am not "normal". Now I realise that "normal" is very subjective and the perception of what "normal" is can depend on many different factors. The people you are with, your environment and the culture you grew up in. I now realise that when people say to you that you are not "normal" it means that you are not meeting the expectations of what another person believes to be the way that all humans are suppose to be. But who really is normal? What does normal mean?

 The (non) definition of "normal".

I have just looked up the word "normal" in the Oxford English Dictionary and one amazing thing that I discovered about it's definition of the word "normal" is...

...it hasn't really got one. LOL

It just casually describes it as an adjective meaning "usual" "typical" or "expected". So basically when we call someone or something "normal" it is usually because we automatically assume that certain events are going to occur or that we are so used to seeing someone or something in a certain way that we subconsciously find it impossible to view a person, object or subject in a different way.

 My "Madness"

When I was a kid I was called "mad" many times by my own mother. I had (and to an extent still have) many behaviour patterns that my mother did not like for example talking to my self or "pacing up and down". Most of these behavioural traits were mainly caused by intense thought and anxiety.

During my adolescence I had a really hard time being called terms like "mad" and "abnormal". There were even times where it got to the point where I would get into a violent temper. I was extremely hurt by those words and the pain of such terms was often unbearable.

The feeling of not being fully accepted as who I am by my family is still there to this day but now I realise that you cannot rely on anyone for happiness.

 The Imprisonment of Normal.

I will just summarise what we have learnt about the word "Normal". "Normal" can be describe as a series of conditions that are accepted by society. However, what I have realised recently is that the only reason that "Normal" exists is that society in general are usually afraid of differences because that don't know how to deal with them.

The trouble is that we often underestimate the complexity of the human race which means we develop a somewhat narrow perception of what people are or what they can be.

If you think you are "normal" that you are really putting yourself in some kind of prison. It means you have a limited perception of people and society and you miss out on how unique you are (or could be) and the uniqueness of other people. If you can open yourself to all different kinds of people your quality of life will improve because you will have more friends and you will have a better understanding of all human beings.

My Review of 2015

MY REVIEW OF 2015

I started this year seeing it as a year of new beginnings. Before the year actually started, I was introduced to a Japanese live streaming site called “NicoNico” which broadcasts live Shogi (Japanese Chess) events, especially professional title matches.

On Saturday 7^th February I was introduced to the “Mind” hub in East Croydon which I registered for before the start of the year. “Mind” is a charity that deals with people with various mental health issues and learning disabilities. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to go as often as I would have like and other places too because of the illnesses that I have suffered this year.

I joined a new free online Chess playing site called “Lichess” on Wednesday 18^th February after my counselling appointment.

I was also introduced to a fortnightly group called the “Aspergen Coffee Morning” where people on the autistic spectrum talk about various life experiences which I first joined on Wednesday 5^th August. The nicest thing for me joining this group was that I saw a good amount of women on the spectrum. (Women with Autism are not easy to find.)

This year has been an emotional year for me in terms of on-the-board Chess. There was a time where I thought I successfully defended the Stoneleigh Trophy title for South Norwood only to find that in our deciding match was drawn instead of a win for South Norwood because of a rule that I overlooked. What was worse, Guilford won the their final match of the competition by default because their opponents Castles for whatever reason couldn’t turn up for their away match which meant that it was instead Guildford that won the title. The Stoneleigh campaign was just one of many near misses I had during the spring. I had 2 chances to win the CCF Division 1 individual championship but losing both the last games. In the first of those games I was one rightly timed white pawn push away from winning the title. The next near miss was an embarrassing loss for my “Hat-Trick” CCF Super League team. In a complicated struggle, I was probably heading for a small endgame advantage only to suddenly allow a back-rank checkmate. That was a very difficult thing for me to take. After that we at South Norwood also lost our Ellery Williams Memorial Trophy title to Dorking on the final match of the season. I won my game but the rest of the team lost theirs and we lost 3-1.

On Thursday 14^th May, I played my last ever home match for South Norwood Chess Club. It was a Croydon League match against West Wickham. I won my own game on time. It was the first time ever that I won a Standard play game on the clock. The team won the match 3-1. After the match, I shook hands with all the members and guests who were present at the club that night.

Something unfortunate happened to me the previous day. On Friday 15^th May, I was busy cleaning my shower room when I suddenly had a big sneeze which saw me back in my bed as I was actually fatigued by the sneeze. Later that evening, I was out to buy some food when I experienced chronic breathing difficulties and eventually had to come home and call the ambulance. I spent 3 days in hospital and was put on a 3 week programme of very strong medication. However, when I returned home from hospital, I saw a tall postal package at my door. I didn’t know what it was at first but then I saw some Japanese writing at the front and then I knew exactly what it was. It was my Shogi Certificate from the Japan Shogi Association which I ordered around the time of my birthday. (12^th April) Shogi is a Japanese board game related to Chess and the objective is the same. Capture the opponent’s king. I first learnt about the game in 2008 and have played on-line regularly.

I played in the Felce Cup for only the third time since my debut in 2010. I had to go to the Trinity Road club in Wimbledon to play the games. It was a ropy start to the campaign with 3 straight draws followed by a loss in the fourth round after a long endgame struggle. In the fifth game I was lucky to escape with another draw after getting into some trouble in the opening, and then I finally had back to back wins before a fifth draw and then I lost my final game. One of the six players withdrew so the first game did not count in the final standings which meant that I finished the tournament with 4 out of 8 points, sharing 2^nd place and just half a point behind the eventual section winner. The winner of the tournament came from Dorking.

Back in August, I had a message from somebody I knew in person of Facebook. He asked if I was interested in running one of the CCF Super League teams. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a team captain at CCF as I initially wanted to have more time focusing on other thing outside of Chess. However, after some thought I decided to take up the challenge. Eventually I decided to become captain two Super league teams. One for Long-play Super league and one for Rapid-Play version. I decided to give them both the same name. “The Dragon Kings”. The name was inspired by one of the professional title matches in Shogi.

On the spiritual side of things, I decided early on in the year that my biggest barrier to a happy life is coping with problematic people and working out how I should handle such people. I have had many fallouts with people down the years they are nearly always soul destroying for a long time. I then realised that the reason for this was that I put myself under unnecessary pressure to please everybody and it often leads to a lot of stress, anger and even anxiety attacks. I have been working with affirmations in my meditation practice and I decide that the one that works best for me is “May I do my best in everything that I do”. I love this affirmation because it reminds us not to put ourselves under too much pressure to achieve anything. I have tried others as well but I think this one works best for me. I have also promised myself not to listen to overly negative comments about me as they are often misconceptions of who I am as a person. I have also thought about whom I really am as a person and what I value as a person. I would say the qualities I would use to describe myself are “honest” “direct” “kind” “gentlemanly” “sporting” “thoughtful” “self-challenging” and “respectful”. These days I realise the importance of having a sense of self and knowing deeply who you are as a person.

May you do your best in everything that you do in 2016. This is a year I will look forward to as it is the year that will mark my 30^th birthday.

Thank you all.

Richard Davis

Completed on Sunday 6^th December 2015

My Review of 2016

MY REVIEW OF 2016

Dedicated to Mariam Aisha Abdallah

7 September 1971 -  27 April 2016

This year has been a year has been a great year. It’s been a year that has changed my life for the better. This year has been a year of spiritual awakening and I have had many great realisations about life that has made me a happier person. On the 2^nd of January, I was feeling lonely after feeling distressed during Christmas 2015 so I decided to type up “Loneliness” on the YouTube search engine. Suddenly, I found a video with a thumbnail graphic saying “How to deal with loneliness”. Little would I know that it was a video that would change my life! (or at least my perception of it.) It was a video by a spiritual teacher and author named Noah Elkrief. His videos showed how suffering in our lives is created our thoughts about our circumstances and not the circumstances themselves. Once I realised that it was my thoughts of loneliness was making me lonely and not being alone in itself causing the loneliness then my feelings of loneliness went away and I felt a lot better. I watched all of Noah’s YouTube videos and eventually bought his book. “A guide to the present moment”.

Later on, I started to have some wonderful realisations about life which left me in a blissful mental state. First, I realised that anger is caused by desire and therefore it is the desperate wanting of things that create anger and other forms of suffering. Another realisation that I had that made me feel better about life was that other people’s opinions of you are not a real reflection of who you are as a person but rather a reflection of them as a person. In other words, opinions are just opinions will not necessarily be a truthful statement of you.

Throughout the year, I bought a lot of books about Zen practice. Many of them were authored by the famous Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh. However, one of them was a beginner’s book. There was a section in this book that mentioned all the destructive thought processes that leads to the killing of animals, humans, plants and planet earth in general. Then I remembered back in January when attending my local Buddhist centre while attending a meditation class that they were running a campaign called “veganuary” which attempted to promote a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. At the time, there was a poster in the small lobby area saying that the production of meat causes about 50% of the world’s air pollution. More than what comes from car fumes. All this provoked me into trying for a vegetarian diet in order to show loving kindness to animals. At first I was uncertain about maintaining a vegetarian diet but I am now glad to say that I have comfortably sustained the vegetarian lifestyle. I have also leaned towards non-dairy milks, especially oat and almond milk.

My spiritual path has also helped me with my on-going chess pursuits. I no longer feel the pressure of winning as much as I used to. I now try not to think about winning but rather to just focus on playing the best chess that I can. Last year, I left South Norwood Chess Club after my struggles to cope with the behaviour of a certain individual who was often very critical and often spoke without sensitivity. My improved understanding and wisdom of other people provoke me to return to South Norwood Chess Club knowing that I am able to deal with my other people’s behaviour better than I was previously. Although it was an honour to represent the inter-club teams for CCF for a season, it was great to go back to a place I like to call my second home.

My year on the chessboard overall was a rather average one, although there were some positive highlights to look back on. I scored a ground-breaking victory with the black pieces with the Black pieces against a 178 ECF player after a long struggle to get to the venue when trying to make my own way there. It was my best over-the-board Standard-Play result ever. I also made it to the final of the ECF All-England Under 140 Championship with my Surrey county team which was held in Warwickshire. However, for most of the year, I had been fighting flu, asthma and hay fever symptoms that have made life difficult for me. I struggled with hay-fever and asthma over the summer and once again found myself in hospital with a chest infection in July. It was my 5^th admission to hospital in 4 years.

I look forward to the continuation of my spiritual path in 2017. The events of the last 12 months have certainly given my life more meaning and purpose. The things that I have learnt in 2016 have ultimately made me a healthier, calmer and above all things a happier person.

I wish you all a pleasant and peaceful 2017.

Best wishes. Namaste.

Richard Davis

THE END

Completed on Monday 18^th January 2017.