by George Dorgan
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In today’s rapidly changing world, where human attention has become the scarcest resource, practices that develop critical thinking, resilience, and mindfulness are more important than ever. One such practice is Go—an ancient strategic game from the East, over 2,500 years old. More than just an intellectual exercise, Go is a lifelong tool for personal growth.
By Volodymyr Kosterin
Honorary President of the Ukrainian Go Federation, Head of the Swiss Risk Reduction Foundation
What Go Develops: Beyond the Board
Go cultivates a wide range of personal and cognitive skills:
– Strategic thinking and long-term planning
– Emotional resilience and calmness under pressure
– Holistic and analytical perception
– Creativity and cognitive flexibility
– Constructive communication skills
Every move on the Go board matters. It affects the entire position, shaping the player’s systemic thinking and their ability to foresee the consequences of decisions. The game nurtures not only logic but also intuition and responsibility.
Resilience Through Uncertainty
Go teaches players how to live with uncertainty—a vital skill in modern life. It builds inner resilience by presenting challenges where clarity is never guaranteed. Players learn to navigate ambiguity, adapt to evolving situations, and make reasoned decisions with limited information.
A Philosophy of Creation
Unlike games centered on destruction, the objective of Go is to build stable, balanced territory. This constructive nature makes it especially valuable in education, business, and character development.
Each game is a unique story, lasting from an hour to several months. Throughout play, one develops a sense of positioning and awareness of latent potential. Go also teaches how to recognize false attacks—moves that simulate threats to provoke mistakes or reinforce one’s position. These tactics mirror real-world strategies in negotiation, politics, business, and military affairs, where distraction often hides true intent.
Asymmetric Thinking and Psychological Insight
Go rewards both precise calculation and psychological insight. Its strategic nature fosters asymmetric solutions—where small actions can have major impact, based on the idea that a gram can move a ton. This mindset promotes a deeper awareness of one’s actions and their broader context, both on the board and in life.
As artificial intelligence increasingly takes over routine tasks, intellectual games like Go should serve as mental workouts for human minds—developing attention, foresight, and complex reasoning.
National Impact: Raising Strategists, Not Just Players
Popularizing Go at a national level—especially through educational systems—can help cultivate a generation of strategic thinkers. In a world where major players follow ancient stratagems to divide and reshape the future, only those nations that raise true strategists from childhood—those who learn to see not just the board, but the intentions behind it—can participate as worthy players.
Go as a Way of Life
Go is more than a game. It’s a way of life, where:
– Form reflects spirit
– Space becomes power
– Patience leads to foresight
– Connection overcomes isolation
– Silence becomes a move
Mastery is not found in victory alone, and certainly not in the desire to win at any cost. Instead, Go teaches self-improvement through the acceptance of limits, boundaries, and respect for rules. Simplicity becomes the pinnacle of complexity. The battle for the center and the edge becomes a lesson in both tactics and strategy, where intuition meets calculation and influence outweighs territory.
Without such a school of thought, a nation risks becoming not a subject, but an object of the global game.
Go for All Ages: A Lifelong Companion
Go offers benefits throughout the entire lifespan:
For Children:
– Develops logic, attention, and perseverance
– Teaches how to win and lose with dignity
For Adults:
– Enhances strategic thinking and analytical ability
– Reduces stress and boosts focus and productivity
For the Elderly:
– Prevents cognitive decline
– Provides social engagement and a channel to share wisdom
Across all life stages, Go supports mental well-being and personal growth.
The Role of AI: AlphaGo and Beyond
AlphaGo’s 2016 victory over champion Lee Sedol marked a milestone in artificial intelligence. Go was long considered one of the few games where human intuition and creativity outmatched machines. Its complexity revealed the depth of human thinking.
Today, Go is both a training platform for algorithms and a school of thought for people.
Scalability and Societal Value
Go is a cost-effective and scalable tool with significant long-term benefits:
– Minimal equipment needs (just a board and stones)
– Easy integration into schools and educational systems
– Long-term return on investment via improved decision-making
For society, the economic and cultural value is clear.
The Abstract Map of Life
In a digital age, Go brings us back to focus, meaning, and inner balance. It teaches us to perceive people, actions, and events as configurations on a goban—an abstract map of life.
The true lesson of Go is that strength lies not in destruction, but in building sustainable connections, making wise decisions, and growing through every encounter. Go helps us play—not to defeat others, but to understand ourselves and create something meaningful in the process.
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