Puzzling

Puzzles provide a strange metaphor for life. And I mean strange because such a simple thing translates into a myriad of examples from the everyday mundane to the lifelong overarching.

Typically a puzzle is a beautiful picture; a nice vista, an animal or lots of animals, a building or cities of buildings, or a piece of artwork or even everyday items. Really, any picture can be taken and made into a puzzle, regardless of the simplicity or complexity of the picture.

This picture is then exploded into a crapload of pieces (the more the better in my opinion) and jumbled up into a mess. These pieces, however, all fit perfectly into their neighbors, of the Tab A goes into Slot B variety. And that's your job, the make the picture whole again.

How one decides to reassemble the picture depends on the individual and, I suppose, the picture. I slowly, carefully, methodically, mindfully separate them by color, lack of color, stripes of color, patterns or color, shapes of color, edges, corners, et cetera, until I have piles of "similars".

Then, slowly, carefully, methodically, mindfully recognizing a piece and matching it with its neighbor, and its neighbor and its neighbor. With each piece paired to its neighbor portions of the picture begin to form, shapes become recognizable.

Those portions get bigger with every piece, two portions combine to become a larger section, and slowly, carefully, methodically, mindfully the picture gets assembled. Sure, there are snags, sometimes pieces don't look right, sometimes the ones that look right don't fit, sometimes no matter what you do you can't see the whole, can't see the section, can't see the portion, can't even see one piece's neighbor.

Always, inevitably, a few stragglers remain to finish off the puzzle, assuming you haven't lost any pieces, but as the picture becomes clearer, the what goes where is easier to find, the entire process requires less overall effort, and finally, the complete picture is before you, in all of its glory.

I just described assembling a puzzle, but really, put the word problem in place of puzzle and it works, put life in place of puzzle, and it works, put relationship in place of puzzle and it works, put goals in the place of puzzle and it works; the trials, tribulations, victories, joys and sorrows of a puzzle resemble very closely with those of life/relationships/problems/goals.

I have a game on my computer that's Microsoft Puzzle, or something like that, and I do a couple of small puzzles a day, at least, and I can't help but see the similarities and sometimes that makes me sad, and sometimes it makes me happy, and sometimes it makes me realize that life/problems/relationships/goals aren't so hard, they just require I work slowly, carefully, methodically, mindfully and not give up. I just wish I wasn't doing them alone.