Brother, you are confused. Chess does not lead to enlightenment...it is for fun. People take the game very seriously (and don't get me wrong, I like to study new ideas) but it is like working a puzzle...the enjoyment comes from you and your opponent "discussing" positions - that is the point of the game.
Forget the books. Forget the theory. Forget it all.
Think of this - go back to the basic. Knights move in an L, bishops move diagonals, etc.
Now, remember king safety.
Begin to learn new types of attacks, and try to play inspired every game.
Your problem is you have become overwhelmed by the desire to understand chess in its entire possibilites. That is good, but there is one problem - humans are fallible. Even the greatest players make lemons. You take a game with perfect possibilities, but it is played by mere mortals.
Don't give it up. Backgammon is fine too, but they both are different. Backgammon, you are counting odds. Chess, you are creating odds. Chess has much more freedom to it than backgammon.
Once a 30+ year veteran taught me how to play backgammon, and we played a three-game match. First game - he crushed me. Second game - I crushed him. Third game - he beat me by one roll. I knew much less than him, but played by intuition, and almost beat him.
Moral of the story? Have fun...push pawns...roll dice...smile...enjoy the games, and have fun. Throw your books out the window, until you remember that chess is actually a fun game, and then when you are able to smile when you look at the board, go get your dirty chess books, wipe them off, and look at them again. You will enjoy it more then!
As the Welsh ambassador for chess I am often in the poor sheepless corners of the globe - Africa and Asia mainly, spreading the word of chess. I founded the first Welsh language chess school in Kigali, Rwanda and set up the first official chess-based City twinning between Llantrissant and Chandpur, Bangladesh. I am Wales' first chess emmissary to most minor African countries for example Morrocco.
In this role I am required to sell the chess dream and to evangelise the literal chess story to non-believers. In the beginning there was Steinitz...
Recently, however, I have begun to question the fundament of my chess beliefs and am suffering a real crisis of faith. I have started to doubt whether chess is really the one true path to enlightenment. I have even started to look at other games. I have found that Backgammon gives me equal spiritual fulfilment.
Magriel's Backgammon unlike any chess book I have read is absolutely authoritative and is subject to no questions since its redaction is only a couple decades after the death of the founder of the game.
Most chess books, in contrast, were written many, many centuries after the death of the founder and they are often at loggerheads over the legitimacy of various teachings - these disputed teachings sometimes form the core of separate movements - Classical, Hypermodernism and Counter-intuitivsimism. This is not the case in Backgammon where the doubling dice always promises eternal paradise.
I want to convert to Backgammon can I follow both codes equally?