The chess tables on Saturday morning

A public library in Jeddah sets out chess tables on Saturday mornings. Nobody is paid to be there. Retired engineers, a few university students, a dentist, a boy who comes with his grandfather. Some have played for forty years and some learned last spring.

There are people in the region who earn a living from chess. You could count them without much effort. The people who play for nothing, for the pleasure of turning up and sitting across from someone, outnumber them many times over. For a good number of the people in that room, those two hours are the best part of the week.

I think almost everyone needs a room like that. Something you belong to not because it pays or advances anything, but because a group of people have agreed to make something together and your part is welcome. A neighbourhood clean-up crew, a Friday football side, a group that reads books aloud for people who cannot read print. The work matters, and so does the company that comes with it.

For a long time, finding one depended on luck. You had to live near it, or know someone who already went. That has changed. A group like this can now be found with a single search, and it can be started with one message to a handful of people who care about the same thing.

Which means the absence of one near you is a smaller obstacle than it has ever been. Somebody has to set out the first table.