Jigsaw puzzles.

I consider jigsaw puzzles to be metaphor for life that is one endless puzzle.

 

The last jigsaw puzzle I attempted, this winter, turned into an unmitigated disaster.
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The problem was we had a kitten in the house. So I covered the puzzle with an old sheet every time I'd stop working on it as it laid upon the dining room table.
And every time I'd return there would be a few pieces missing from what I had just completed, usually from around the frame. Just like in life, two steps ahead, one back.

This went on for a week or two. Me rebuilding the damage a couple times a day, the little kitten reaching under the sheet, throwing pieces on the floor, jumping up and down and having a good old time. Me slowly making headway against the Vandals and Mongrel hoards.

Slowly putting Rome together, instilling order, marching to completeness and success.

And the day finally arrived, I had only about twenty pieces to go. Carefully I covered my work beneath the sheet. On top I piled the trappings of culture and refinement... Euclid's Elements, The Origin of Species, The I Ching, The Republic, and The Canterbury Tales.

...And off to bed, to the dreamless realm of perfect peace and serenity.



And the mourning dawned.
The shattered remains of all my toil and strife lay scattered like so many stones from the ancient wonders of the world. The sheet, my thin protective membrane, was twisted and flung to the floor. Half of the puzzle was destroyed, dead leaves fallen to the ground, the remainder hanging over the edge, poised to fall into the precipice of chaos and the random arrangement of chance and happenstance.

And on the floor the I Ching lay open:



Hexagram 23 - Po

Mountain Above,
Earth Below.

Splitting Apart.
It does not further one to go anywhere.

______________________


In a cat's eyes, all things belong to cats.
The mysteries of the world are not meant to be solved,
the puzzle must never be completed.

.....so I went back to bed.
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