You begin to wonder how chess has managed to persist as a silent witness to at least 1,500 years of human history. While there are some alternative histories, the conventional wisdom is that the precursor of the modern game flowered in northern India at some point between 531 and 579. The game evolved through Persian, Arabic and European influences, with subtle changes to the names of the pieces and how they moved until about 1640, when the castling rule was established and the modern version of chess settled into its final equilibrium. Since then, for almost 400 years, chess has spread throughout the world and become an integral part of civilization.

The combination of global heritage, beguiling depth, strategic resonance and aesthetic charm makes chess much more than a game. In fact, I believe chess simulates the conditions for a life of meaning. Whether through work or love or art, life becomes more meaningful whenever we take responsibility for something or someone. Responsibility is not always pleasurable or even positive, but it is purposeful. It adds significance and direction to life and helps answer the perennial human question, “What should I do?” And while our lives are characterized by many things, they are defined most profoundly by the open secret of our inevitable deaths. Chess simulates the meaning of life because it is a ritual encounter with death in disguise, where we experience the responsibility to stay alive one move at a time.

The game is sublimated warfare, and chess players are compelled to kill, but the martial conceit of chess allows us to experience aesthetic liberation. Every battle is a unique story where two protagonists seek to destroy each other, but the underlying logic feels beautiful and true. The more intense the battle, the more we experience power and freedom.

Is that happiness? Not by any conventional definition. One of the most lucid contemporary definitions of happiness, from Paul Dolan, a professor at the London School of Economics, describes it as “the experience of pleasure and purpose over time.” That captures much that is important in life, but humans are too complex, restless, dark, impish and transgressive ever to feel at ease with feel-good purposiveness alone. The essayist and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips puts it well when he says that happiness is fine as a side effect, but it’s a cruel demand. I now think of chess not so much as a path to happiness as a ritual where we free each other from the pressure to be happy.

It is a relief to realize that happiness is not the most important thing in life. But what then are we seeking? My best guess — and I can only guess — is that we are seeking joy.