A Gutsy Gambit

I became preoccupied with something after running away to somewhere — setting out on a sort of fantasy quest common to my generation. I became obsessed with bitcoin after I headed to eastern Canada to write for a little newspaper by the sea. Years later, I left a relatively prestigious job to build a blockchain start-up, dropping everything to try to grow it. I’ve always thought these breakouts are normal behaviour for a millennial. With our sense of entitlement, we believe we can be anything. But we also came of age amid increasing financial uncertainty and stress, and so we often say “Fuck it” and run off to begin anew.

That’s not always the smoothest path, writes Sasha Chapin in his memoir, All the Wrong Moves. When he left everything to pursue chess, Chapin found that a gulf lay between himself (the somewhat good player) and greatness. The Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the world’s best, by contrast, easily won sixty-eight simultaneous games with players whose...