Only in my early middle-age years did I piece together the mystery of the jigsaw puzzle. As a child I never understood the attraction of spending hours slotting together pieces of a randomly divided picture to end up with a complete image that would then be broken up again. Why would mesmerized adults while away the precious hours? The older the adult, the more they liked puzzling.
Now I’m middle aged, the counter-intuitive has slowly revealed its secrets. Here is an activity that defies a crisis, that slows time, that delivers a slow-cooked triumph unlike few other activities. Here is a process that mirrors life itself except here you can be the true master, the divine force of creation and control, defining order from chaos. The chaos begins with the bang of opening the plastic bag and the spilling of all those elemental pieces that swirl around, discordant and disconnected. Then bring in energy and patience to sort out the particles: a pile for the edges and the rest can wait. Now the defining of the space, connecting corners so that the space takes shape and the real investment of time begins. Hours become days and weeks as you slowly sift the primeval soup and draw together crooked atoms to form elements, shapes, a sense of something grander. That triumph of a joining enough pieces to make a swirling ball of sense. Slowly bring order to chaos with the organization of pieces. Gravity of the edges creates a defined structure and space. You play at being a Biblical god forming something meaningful from darkness and clay. Each successful click is a step in the evolution of this matter towards complexity, something orderly emerging from the disorder: the life of the picture you are animating. So it unfolds, this puzzle of your life. So you devote time and concentration, and you build and create, you realize and revitalize. The truth: the puzzle is everything you have ever wanted to achieve, including the sense of completion and knowledge that complexity can withstand the chaos. You are the master. You are the maker. Now it is your choice how long to preserve and when to destroy.
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AuthorA poetic-essay style blog with a limit of 365 words. 365 like the days of the year - my name being one of those days! Archives
March 2020
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