This essay examines what chess’s survival and flourishing despite superhuman engines reveals about humanity’s potential relationship with AI. It explores why human chess retained meaning, what choices enabled coexistence, and the harder questions that emerge when we extend this analogy beyond games to work, governance, and society.

The human brain evolved to pursue, not to possess—happiness is neurologically designed to be temporary. The wellness industry profits from this by creating dissatisfaction and selling inadequate solutions, while the genuine correlates of wellbeing (relationships, contribution, autonomy) cannot be productized. The honest path is not finding happiness but accepting its impossibility and pursuing meaning instead.