Puzzling Redux

Six month reminder?

So if I think up an article during a morning run, and find that I actually wrote that exact article six months ago, what’s the message?

Take a walk with me while I consider the concept…

If you don’t learn the lesson the first time – life lets you keep retaking the same lesson.

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Life’s a puzzle

It was a great concept – we start putting them together from the youngest age, and simply keep doing so when we get older – life’s a puzzle.

There’s quite a bit to talk about as well – how we start with easy ones and move up to more and more difficult ones.  That we use different tactics to make our way through the challenge – starting with the edges, concentrating on specific features, and grinding through the really hard portions.

And you can read it all – in “Putting the Pieces Together.”

Take two

And so it was with some mild surprise that I read through my entry from May – that made all the points that I wanted to bring out.

But then I wondered – why?

Why had I thought of the same topic?  What didn’t I get from it the first time?

The full picture

I began to wonder – what was different from that earlier article?

It took a bit of time – re-reading the article with care.  And then I noticed…

I said “our mind ultimately ‘knows’ what the completed picture looks like, and is fitting the individual pieces into their correct spot – to solve the puzzle.”

And I realized that I wasn’t thinking that any longer – that I was combining the concept of “Running Full Speed into the Fog” with the puzzle.

So a better analogy would be … that we really don’t know what the completed picture looks like – that we ultimately reveal the total picture as we are completing the puzzle.

Much harder

And so the concept is more complete – how much harder is it to fit pieces together when you don’t have a copy of the picture in front of you?  What happens when you have to imagine what the final puzzle will look like?

Combine those together with the fact that the “puzzle pieces” of life don’t always fit together as neatly as real puzzle pieces, and things get very complicated…

Making a point

And so – I was afforded the opportunity to “rethink” the same issue – and refine things.

It’s not that the ‘life as a puzzle’ analogy was flawed, but that in explaining it, I made it seem easier – and suggested that if we search a little harder we might glimpse the puzzle cover and see what things will look like when we complete it.

Oh – it’s certain that we see little pieces of the puzzle as we’re going along.  And we are able to make deductions about what the whole thing might look like – but I doubt that any of us has the end game completely in sight before we start;-)

And that appears to be an important point. One worth returning to.