Cammy

Comes now the story of Cammy.

Cammy was born a curious girl with a natural enthusiasm with regards to science and inquiry. She loved to learn about the world around her. She would read whatever books she could get her hands on. She would study the natural world: the insects around her home, the trees, flowers, the animals, every living thing. She would also interrogate the night sky learning about the stars and the moon. She studied the motion of objects and read about the physics of it. Cammy was someone who loved to learn.

When Cammy grew older, she discovered philosophy.. She enjoyed the field largely because it seemed to be the origin of learning. She read that all of the great philosophers were themselves also scientists. Cammy enjoyed reading their work about their field of study and how it was infused with their philosophy.

Aside from her pursuit to learn, Cammy also enjoyed the game of chess. The game, to her, was a universe of battle. It was war confined to a board and she enjoyed playing other people and studying their methods. Cammy was an astute player and began to play competitively in tournaments.

Cammy played well as youngster and advanced in the ranks. One day, she crossed paths with another young prodigy in a tournament. He had developed a name for himself as being a genius. Cammy played him and defeated him decisively. The victory gave her notoriety and she became a celebrated figure in the game. But despite the win, she could not consistently defeat other opponents in the higher ranks of the chess universe. She continued to play the game professionally with moderate success.

She realized that while she enjoyed the game of chess, it was not really her life’s passion. Cammy continued to play the game and compete amongst the best, but ultimately, she decided it was not for her.

Cammy decided instead that she would become a philosopher and study the methods of developing knowledge. Every philosopher needs to start with an education which came very easily to Cammy, as she was a lifelong student. She earned the necessary degrees to become an academic in the field on the way to becoming a philosopher.

In this educational journey, she was approached one day by the man who she could easily defeat in chess. The two of them had become something of rivals in the game. The man asked her to go out to dinner and she agreed. From that initial date, a relationship blossom, and the two married. They had the struggles of all young couples when they first get married. But they settled into a dynamic and for the rest of their days, they were comparatively happy

As a scholar, Cammy narrowed her research of philosophy to that of politics. She had discovered a book written by a monk in the past. The book was based on a long-lost manuscript written in antiquity about the nature of power. The book inspired Cammy, as she considered how power is used in the game of chess. She decided then that her pursuit as a philosopher would be the intersection of how power is used in games and whether it translates to how power is exhibited in life.

One night, while looking at the stars, the moon visited her and told her that she could pursue this endeavor, but there were no guarantees that it would ever make her a philosopher. Cammy responded that she did not care. All she wanted to do was to create understanding, which is the goal of any philosopher.

While Cammy felt like she had an important idea, she struggled to develop a hypothesis. It was the starting point for any form of research whether it was philosophy or science or medicine or any study of human knowledge. Cammy felt like she had the bricks to build the house, but she did not have a blueprint for the house.

Her first hypothesis was simply that humans exert power over each other in life much as they do when they play games. That seemed simple enough. Cammy figured it would be easy to correlate human behavior with how they play games and how they live their lives. But as she read and conducted her research, she realized it was not that simple.

So Cammy decided to change her hypothesis. The new iteration of her hypothesis was humans develop their notions of power by playing games. While not as elegant as her first hypothesis, she felt that the research would be easier to tease out with this new version. But she was mistaken. She spent years researching her ideas but could not find a way to build a framework around them.

Frustrated, Cammy decided to modify her hypothesis again. This version stated that the notion of power is expressed in games the same as it is expressed in human interaction. This was more complicated than her first two attempts because the argument was that power existed independent of human endeavor. The research surrounding this hypothesis would be more about how power works in general. Cammy did not want to take this route because once a person tries to establish a universality of a construct, the idea can easily be defeated through an exception.

Cammy spent years on this hypothesis. As she had done her entire life, she read, she wrote, and spent days and nights thinking about her ideas.

Time passed and Cammy simply could not develop a framework to support her ideas. She felt as though she were a failure. She had never been able to write any definitive material that would qualify her to be a philosopher. By then Cammy was older and reaching the end of her academic career. She was tired and felt like she could not start over again. Maybe she should stop altogether, she thought.

One day as she played a game of chess with her husband, he defeated her. It was the first time that it had ever happened. In all the years they have played each other. Eventually, it seemed, her husband had learned enough of her moves that he was finally able to beat her in the game that they both loved. Instead of being disappointed about losing the game, Cammy felt happy. Her husband had tried for so long to beat her and was unsuccessful and now in their advanced years, he had finally won.

Cammy returned to her office the next day and began changing her hypothesis yet again. Her career had developed understanding she realized. Cammy learned that there’s never a reason to quit doing something that you love.