Does chess choose the player?

I'm asking this because I've been shifting my perspective on my own reasons for playing chess back and forth in the last few months.

I'm aware that I'm never gonna be a World Champion, I'm aware that there are less stressful games out there (because in chess there are such things as blunders, which can effectively give your opponent a touch-of-death combo from a technically winning position, to borrow some fighting game linguo), and I'm aware that it takes two players to create a beautiful game, so looking at it practically, no reason for me to bother and play for anything other than maybe some simple mental gymnastics, right?

Well, even though it seems that such a train of thought should liberate me, it doesn't. Today I found myself obsessively plowing through some game collections in hopes of... what, again? Getting my creative chess juices flowing? I'm not too fond of chess, yet it keeps calling me back like my mission isn't finished yet. I feel that I have to study it, even though I don't have a hope of being the next Velimirović or anything, certainly not with everything else going on in my life. It's like I want to fall in love with chess again, but that barely makes any sense at all, and now I just feel stuck between the pain of helplessness from losing games on one side, and a chess-shaped void on the other.

I don't want to get better only to compensate and get some kind of revenge for my losses, I don't wanna be obsessed, and I don't want to have to choose between pain and emptiness... that's all. It really sucks, I feel trapped.

Cats calm me down, thank you for this.

Still, I wonder if I'm somehow destined to struggle with chess or something. After all these years, it feels like discovering it was an encounter of fate, but letting it absorb my inner world so much that it becomes inseparable from my search for meaning is... scary. I can't help but think that if I fully answered its call, I'd become an obsessive loner devoid both of real happiness and any noted significance in the chess world.

It's like the price of authenticity is too high, and I'm not even sure if chess is where I'd achieve it. All I have in that respect... is a mental addiction based on a nostalgic need for a coping mechanism that feels fulfilling. I feel a need to let go and spiral headlong into such a black hole... but I'm afraid it's going to ruin my life further.

A thing to note, though: perhaps I'd be less inclined to sweat all this stuff if chess was less stressful to me. The way I see it, that would mean less emotional dependence, so losses wouldn't discourage me as much. I don't care if it means that my wins would automatically feel less satisfying, it's enough that I emotionally remember losses much better than wins as it is... and I don't want that. Feeling powerless and devastated doesn't get better, you just get used to it... but at what cost?

A message to my stress-absorbing body: I'm a weak player as it is, don't do this to me. I'd rather be healthy than good, but you take both of those away from me.

Another stellar username!!!

Still, I meant chess as a calling. A question for the people who recognise chess as their calling: what does it feel like? What is it like to have a deep and lasting intuitive impression that you were cast into this world to make it a better place by playing chess, somehow?

Also, Fixedthx, thanks for even more cats, as well as some very interesting quotes and recommendations.

Fun fact: right after posting comment #4 here, I decided to play some blitz games (5+0), just to see if I'd fret less knowing that the speed of the match would force us both to err. Quick decisions are more fun, right?... Nope.

Such nope.

The nopest.

I kept losing on time anyhow. I had less control than ever.

I'm guessing that my losses will hurt regardless of whether they happen quickly or slowly, gradually or suddenly. That ain't good.